


a tenderness grows

by rusesdeguerre



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, an attempt to answer the age-old question: is the person inside the gritty suit hot?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:33:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusesdeguerre/pseuds/rusesdeguerre
Summary: Nolan wouldn’t say that landing a job as the Philadelphia Flyers’ psychotic and probably clinically insane mascot was a childhood dream of his. Maybe tangentially: playing pond hockey in –30°C weather and pretending to be Sidney Crosby is practically a rite of passage when you grow up in Manitoba. That, and experiencing the distinct displeasure that is thousands of mosquitoes sucking your blood out when your father drags you on a father-son camping trip into the backwoods of the northern Canadian Prairies.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 70
Kudos: 620





	a tenderness grows

Nolan wouldn’t say that landing a job as the Philadelphia Flyers’ psychotic and probably clinically insane mascot was a childhood dream of his. Maybe tangentially: playing pond hockey in –30°C weather and pretending to be Sidney Crosby is practically a rite of passage when you grow up in Manitoba. That, and experiencing the distinct displeasure that is thousands of mosquitoes sucking your blood out when your father drags you on a father-son camping trip into the backwoods of the northern Canadian Prairies. 

Anyway. He digresses. 

This specific circumstance that Nolan is currently in—a bizarre NHL-adjacent job involving a fursuit and multiple forms he had to sign promising he wouldn’t sue a child if the child kicked him in the balls—is not really the same thing as what ten-year-old Nolan had imagined. 

It’s not an awful job, he supposes. For one, he gets benefits. Sick days and 4% vacation pay and he can even go to the dentist and get his teeth cleaned once a year now without needing to fork up a truly obscene amount of money. The pay is even almost half-decent. Like—sure, on the days when a diabolically vicious child feels the need to kick his shins a couple of dozens of times, he does contemplate sending a strongly worded email with choice phrases like “workplace harassment” to Flyers management about raising his pay grade, but he can afford the good hummus at Trader Joe’s now, so for the most part, Nolan’s happy. Which should count for something. It _ does _count for something. Nolan hadn’t been able to afford the good hummus at Trader Joe’s for a while there. Hadn’t been happy for a while there. 

For another thing, the steady income and stability of the job has gotten a few particular people (read: his parents) off his back. He hasn’t exactly told them that he’s _ Gritty_, just that he’s working in the fan outreach subdivision of the Flyers’ media communications department. It’s not technically _ false_, he keeps telling himself, and what his family doesn’t know won’t kill them. For now, the weekly family Skype calls consist of Nolan describing his daily tasks as “interacting with the fans in a fun and engaging way!” and his parents telling him they’re proud of him and Maddy making doubtful sounds in the background. 

(Maddy texts him afterwards, _ i know you’re not doing fan outreach you filthy liar_. Nolan replies with _ ????? wdym?? yeah i am _ and tries to ignore how he’s suddenly breaking into a nervous sweat. Maddy shoots back _ im gonna get to the bottom of this_, leading Nolan to block her number in an act of anxious desperation before realizing that he needs to call Maddy back to ask her how to fill out his tax return forms.) 

Sam, the media communications intern Nolan had met on his first day on the job, had very nicely drafted him a fake job contract when he asked. Just in case. As a contingency plan. She hadn’t even complained when Nolan stammered through his request, just looked mildly amused and asked what he wanted his position to be called. 

The last thing keeping Nolan tied to this job is Travis Konecny. 

Okay, well. 

Just to clarify: it’s not that Nolan has a _ crush_, because he doesn’t and _ no_, he isn’t in denial, thank you very much, but he’s just saying that _ if _Konecny asked if they wanted to go out on a date and maybe hold hands and kiss, Nolan wouldn’t say no. It’s not a big deal or anything. And honestly, Nolan thought he was doing a pretty good job at keeping his whole horny-for-Philadelphia-Flyers-number-11-Travis-Konecny problem under wraps—he hasn’t gotten any knowing and suspicious calls from Maddy, which is usually the litmus test for how obvious he’s being about someone—until Sam turns down the car radio one day on their drive to the rink and says, “So, like. You’re allowed to talk to Travis, you know that, right?” 

“What,” Nolan says and slams on the brakes in a move of panicked desperation even though they’re in the middle of the freeway, cruising at 80 miles an hour. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sam spits out and punches Nolan’s shoulder until he comes to his senses and pushes down on the gas to start driving again. Sam exhales loudly through her nose, says, “Okay, so I’m guessing you don’t want to talk to Travis. Did you want me to say something to him?” 

The car swerves dangerously as Nolan tries to imagine how _ that _conversation between Sam and Konecny would go, and a cacophony of horns blare out behind them. “Shit,” Nolan swears and jerks the steering wheel back to the right. 

Sam is white-knuckled and gritting her teeth. She runs a hand down her face and her voice comes out muffled when she says, “You know what? This can wait. We can talk about this when we get to the office.” 

“No!” Nolan says, a little bit too loudly, and lowers his voice when he sees Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “I mean—what do you mean talk to Travis? Why would I want to talk to Travis? Who’s Travis?” 

Sam rolls her eyes. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal. I can be chill about it. You know, I’ll just say something like ‘you know Nolan? The guy inside Gritty? Yeah, he totally wants to fuck you’ and then—” 

“Oh my God,” Nolan interrupts and actively tries not to throw himself out of the car window. “How is that being chill about it at all? That’s literally the opposite of chill.” 

Sam frowns at Nolan. “Okay, first of all. No offence, dude, but I’m not taking chilling advice from someone who is the least chill ever. Second of all, I’ve been watching you eye-fuck Travis through Gritty’s crazy googly eyes—which, by the way, is most disturbing thing ever—for like, a year and a half. Are you just gonna keep ogling him from halfway across the rink without doing anything?” 

Well—yeah, Nolan supposes that was the plan. He doesn’t think Konecny even knows there’s an actual human person who’s inside Gritty costume playing the definitely not real character of Gritty. Sometimes, when they pass by each other in the hallway, Konecny will slap him a high-five and cheerfully say, “Looking good, Grits,” as if he’s talking to Gritty and not the person whose job is to be inside that fursuit. 

Earlier on last season when this debilitating crush (no no no _ not _a crush) first started, it was easy to chalk it up to Nolan being too busy with the new job to get laid and when he wasn’t too busy, he was too tired. But that was almost eighteen months ago. It’s a little harder now to convince himself that if he just slutted it up for a couple of weeks he would stop wanting to have sex with Konecny. The worst part is that the longer this goes on, the more the fantasies diverge from just fucking and sex; recently, at an alarming rate, after Nolan jerks off in the shower to the memory of a porno he watched recently with his brain gratuitiously superimposing Konecny’s face on one of the dudes’ faces, he starts thinking about really soft and romantic shit he would never admit to himself, much less aloud to Sam—going on double dates with Sam and her girlfriend; looking for apartments together; bringing Konecny back home to meet his sisters; the absolute horror of holding hands. 

He’s gotten better at cutting those off before they start getting into totally uncharted territory. As he said: definitely not a crush. 

“Nol,” Sam is saying. Nolan blinks a couple of times; they’re in the parking lot of their office building across the street for the Flyers’ Skate Zone and Sam is making a vaguely concerned face at him. 

“What?” Nolan asks stupidly. 

“We’ve been parked for like, ten minutes, buddy.” 

Jesus Christ. “Have you just been staring at me for the past ten minutes?” 

“No,” Sam lies. “Okay, yeah, I was.” 

Nolan’s phone buzzes. 

“That’s probably the group chat,” Sam says. “I sent like thirty zoomed-in photos of your nostrils.” 

Nolan briefly considers murdering Sam with the snow shovel in his trunk but decides that Sam is not worth all that work, and thinks he should be receiving a nomination of the Nobel Peace Prize for that accomplishment, at the very least. 

“I hate you,” Nolan tells her. 

Sam sniffs. “At least I don’t have the hots for a dude who doesn’t even know I exist outside of a furry costume.” 

Nolan doesn’t even bother to correct her, just reaches over and puts her in a headlock and threatens to take away the key to his and Kevin’s shared apartment he gave to Sam for emergencies only. (It has, predictably, not been used for emergencies only. For example, last week, Sam had basically broken into his apartment to steal the two bags of salt and vinegar chips he’d been hiding in the back of his cupboard for Emotional Crises and just left a note that read “thanks buddy :) you’re the best.”)

**__________**

That night, Konecny scores two goals and an assist, earning him first star. Giroux scores an empty-netter in the last second of the game and the cheering of the crowd almost drowns out the sound of the final buzzer. Nolan’s standing by the gate with Andrea, waiting for them to start announcing stars of the game. He fires one last t-shirt cannon into the crowd, vaguely aiming for the section Sam said her girlfriend was going to be sitting at tonight. He hears a loud victorious cry from the back couple of rows and then a bald head emerges and waves the t-shirt triumphantly, so Nolan probably didn’t manage to get Sam’s girlfriend a free t-shirt. 

There’s a cute little cuddle session with Hart on the ice before the players start filing out of the rink into the locker room. Nolan puts out a furry orange hand for high-fives. When Konecny passes by, obviously gassed, the back of his neck drenched in sweat, Nolan makes Gritty reach over to ruffle his hair. Konecny squawks and tries to bat Nolan’s—_Gritty’s_—huge hand away, a motion that is useless in the face of a seven-foot-tall and weirdly girthy orange monster. 

“Travis,” Andrea yells after him when he gives up trying to wrestle Gritty to the found and turns to head in the direction of the locker room. “You gotta stay back!” 

Konecny looks wide-eyed at Andrea, points to himself and mouths “_me_?” Andrea rolls her eyes and nods, motioning for Konecny to circle back to the gate of the rink. Giroux gives him a head tap as he passes by. “Atta boy, Teeks,” he calls, and then turns to Voracek beside him and says, “They grow up so fast, don’t they?” 

Jake flings his wet hair around in Konecny’s face and cackles. “Feels like just yesterday we were teaching you how to boil water.” 

“Fuck both of you,” Konecny grumbles and ambles over to Andrea. “Am I third star?” 

Andrea laughs, extremely fond. Nolan is also inexplicably endeared. “First star,” she says wryly and hands him a stick to sign. “Other Travis gets third stars. 

“This means I’m winning that Travis vs Travis media fight you keep making me do videos for, right?” 

“Keep dreaming,” Andrea snorts. “You’re not getting out of any of the five million other Travis vs Travis videos I’m planning on making.” She pats his shoulder condescendingly and then turns to Nolan. “Pats, get out there. Crowd wants Gritty.” 

“Your mom wants Gritty,” Nolan mutters, and Andrea can’t hear him but she gives him an unimpressed look anyway. Nolan tries to make as close to an approximation of flipping someone off as he can manage. He skates around the rink a couple of times, bangs on the glass really loudly and probably makes a kid cry. Konecny comes out onto the ice when they announce him, grinning from ear to ear. He flips the stick over the glass to a girl wearing a #11 jersey and skates over to where Nolan—again, _ Gritty_—is chilling by the gate. 

“Hey,” Konecny skates up to Gritty and grins and slaps Gritty’s hand for a high-five, “Your name’s Patrick?” 

From inside the Gritty fursuit, Nolan starts blushing; he didn’t think Konecny would’ve picked up on Andrea slipping up and calling him by his Real Person Name. 

(Just as an aside, Nolan feels really weird about how they’re all supposed to call him Gritty as soon as he steps into the suit, even when he’s not interacting with the fans or even in the general vicinity of the fans. Like, he doesn’t _ really _mind, but his roommate once spent three minutes trying to get Nolan’s attention and Nolan didn’t register at all because he was so used to people calling him “Gritty.” Which is—not at all a problem he wants to have.)

Gritty makes a seesawing hand motion. _ Kind of. _

“Last name?” Konecny asks and Gritty nods and then puts him in a headlock because Nolan doesn’t know how to reasonably deal with his feelings. The kids standing by the glass scream with excitement; Nolan supposes it’s not every day you get to see interspecies violence, which, he can admit, _ would _make the sight of Peter the Rabbit’s mutated and demonic cousin who was born in the seventh circle of hell beating the shit out of your favourite hockey player way more fun than the previous sixty minutes of actual hockey. 

**__________**

Nolan’s phone rings at five o’clock in the morning the next weekend. 

“Shut the _ fuck _up,” Nolan groans and yanks the charger out of the phone. He squints at the screen and nearly has a heart attack when SARAH blinks back at him. Nolan’s not saying that he believes in karma or the universe’s ability to rebalance its feng shui or whatever the fuck, but if the Flyers’ Senior Director of Communications is calling him at this hellish hour in the morning, Nolan’s pretty certain he must’ve murdered a puppy in his past life or something. 

“Hello,” Nolan says slowly into the phone. 

“Nolan,” Sarah says, somber, and Nolan swallows. “Sorry to call you this early in the morning, but it’s kind of urgent. We got a weird call last night from a fan. Can you recall any situation that Gritty—well, you—might’ve, say, punched a kid in the back of his head?” 

Nolan drags a hand down his face, buries his head into his pillow. Fuck this job, honestly. “No,” he says honestly, “I don’t think I can.” 

“Okay,” Sarah says and lets out a breath. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but would you mind coming to the office today so we can corroborate the events of that day?” 

Nolan flips over on his bed and glares up at his ceiling. “Yeah, I can come in,” he lies through his teeth. “What time?” 

“As soon as possible would be great.” 

Which is the short version for why he’s standing in a truly mind boggling seventeen-person line at Wawa’s (it’s five thirty in the morning! On a Saturday!), barely awake, and still wearing the sweatpants he lounges around his apartment in, meaning there’s a weird stain on the knee that could be ketchup but could just as possibly be dried blood. By the time he reaches the front of his line, Sarah must have called Sam to ask about the kid-punching incident because he gets a string of texts from Sam that just consists of the crying-laughing emoji.

**to sam ****  
** shut the fuck up  
im literally gonna get fired 

**from sam **  
i cant believe some asshole parent is trying to frame GRITTY 

**to sam ****  
** yeah, pretty fucked up   
grittys a national icon  
and also more importantly i need to get paid 

“Hi, next in line, please!” 

Nolan glances up to see the guy at the counter waving at him and making his best attempt at a smile. He orders a coffee and then adds a dozen doughnuts as an afterthought. If this is his last day with Gritty, he might as well bring free food for everyone who’s made the task of getting into that hideous fursuit a little bit less embarrassing. 

“Thanks,” he says when the guy passes him the box of doughnuts and gives him a pained smile. 

By the time he makes it up to the media communications office, there’s already a small crowd gathered in the meeting room. Sam and Andrea are talking very animatedly with a lot of hand waving and arm gesturing. Sam’s holding a Sharpie marker and keeps jabbing at the easel pad where someone has drawn a flowchart titled “IS GRITTY GUILTY?” Sarah’s sitting on a swivel chair at the head of the table, two empty mugs of coffee and a yellow legal pad in front of her, staring off vacantly into the distance. 

“Nolan!” Sam stops the gesticulating and beams at him when he walks in. “The man of the hour!” 

“Please don’t,” Nolan groans. He places the box of doughnuts on the table. “This is a bribe,” he informs them. “So I can keep my job.” 

“Who here are you trying to bribe with _ Wawa doughnuts_?” Sam asks, disgusted. She flips open the box with one finger and glares disdainfully into the box. 

“Speak for yourself,” Lauren says, appearing behind Sam and snatching two doughnuts from the box. “You’re such a fucking snob, Sam. They’re literally just sugar, who doesn’t like sugar? I’m totally bribable,” she adds and smushes half of one doughnut into her mouth, “I’ll do whatever you want, Nolan.” 

Sam makes a revolted sound and looks like she’s preparing to launch into a practised speech about the quality of doughnuts, particularly those sourced from Wawa, but luckily Sarah clears her throat and starts talking before Sam can get on a roll. “If we’re all ready to start,” she begins and raises an accusing eyebrow at Sam who just shrugs and doesn’t look sorry at all. Lauren picks up another doughnut from the box and gives Nolan a double thumbs-up. 

“Nolan,” Sarah says, “I’m going to need you to tell me everything you can remember about the November season ticket holders’ event. If any of you have anything to add, feel free to jump in.” She leans forward onto her arms and pulls the yellow legal pad towards her. 

It takes nearly two hours of questioning, six hours of security footage, an anonymous witness statement from one of the security guards at the event, and fifty-seven addendums to the IS GRITTY GUILTY? flow chart for the entire mess of a situation to be sorted. Sarah shakes Nolan’s hand and pats him on the back and tells him to go home and get some rest, they’ll get the rest of it sorted out, and no, he’s not fired, don’t worry. 

“That was pretty exciting, wasn’t it?” Sam asks, trailing behind him as he speed walks across the street to the Flyers’ Skate Zone. Their office building doesn’t have a single vending machine—something about “not spending funds on unnecessary items,” which is a whole load of bullshit if you ask Nolan; the Flyers’ practice rink has a vending machine at the end of every hallway. Nolan’s going to eat his weight in over-salted vending machine chips and refuse to feel bad about it. He deserves it; Gritty almost got arrested today. 

“_No_,” Nolan says emphatically. “Did you see Sarah trying to murder me with her eyes? She _knows _I didn’t punch a stupid kid and she was still trying to fucking decapitate me with her laser beam eyeballs!” 

Sam scoffs. “That’s just Sarah’s face, don’t be such an asshole.” 

“No no, it’s not that, trust me.” Nolan shakes his head. “She’s got laser beam eyes and they were activated today. AC-TI-VA-TED,” he repeats, stressing each syllable. 

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Sam says, but she peers up at Nolan, a little more interested than before. “Do you think she laser beamed Bobby?” she asks. “People keep saying he ‘quit’ to ‘pursue other opportunities,’ but the laser beam theory is so much better.” 

They get to the vending machine at the far end of the hallway on the first floor, just by the doors to one of the practice rinks. Nolan feeds in a five-dollar bill. “Nah,” he tells Sam, “Bobby actually quit. He got a job at a bank. Something about portfolio management.” 

“Ugh.” Sam makes a grossed-out sound and pulls a face. “He’s better off dead.” 

“Yeah,” Nolan agrees. The vending machine gobbles up his five-dollar bill and Sam immediately slams both hands on the side of the machine and gives it a good shake. Three bags of chips and a Snickers bar fall off the shelf. “Nice,” Nolan says appreciatively. “That’s gotta be a record.” 

“Andrea once got four Reese’s packs,” Sam replies and Nolan lets out a wistful sigh. They both stand there for a couple of seconds, not bothering to retrieve their snacks from the dispenser, just admiring the beauty that is getting seven dollars worth of food for only five. 

“Are you guys just gonna stand there?” someone says from behind them. 

Sam lets out a squeak and jumps about three feet into the air. Nolan whips around, an explanation of why they’re stealing expired bags of chips from the Flyers Skate Zone already forming in his mouth. 

“Jesus, chill,” Travis Konecny says, grinning crookedly at the two of them. “I’m no snitch,” he quickly assures Sam when her eyes start narrowing, “I just wanted a bag of chips, that’s all.” 

Sam glares at Konecny some more until he visibly starts to look uncomfortable, scratching the back of his head and shifting his weight between legs, which seems to satisfy Sam enough. She shrugs and then turns to give Nolan a pointed stare which he ignores just as pointedly. Konecny looks a little bit like a drowned rat; he’s obviously just gotten out of practice. His hair is curling right at the nape of his neck, hurriedly tucked under his cap, and his socks are mismatched and pulled up over his leggings, and Nolan is a little bit ashamed to admit how much it works for him. Konecny shifts again, pulling his t-shirt up just a little, enough to reveal a strip of skin, and—

Nolan drags his eyes up before they start moving any lower into dangerous territory, plants it back on Konecny’s face where it should’ve been in the first place, and—accidentally makes incredibly awkward eye contact with Konecny. He immediately feels a flush working up his neck and into his cheeks. Konecny cuts his eyes away, looking weirdly embarrassed. 

Sam coughs loudly and glances between Nolan and Konecny, Nolan staring at the ground and Konecny looking at—well, Nolan doesn’t know, because he’s trying his best _ not _to look at Konecny. Sam coughs again, but this time it sounds suspiciously like a snicker. “You want salt and vinegar?” she asks Konecny. 

“What?” Konecny asks stupidly. 

Sam rolls her eyes. “Chips. Do you want them?” 

“Yes,” Konecny responds stupidly. 

Nolan reaches into the dispenser and takes out the bag of salt and vinegar chips and tosses it to Konecny, careful to make very casual and very normal eye contact; cosplaying as a chaotic seven-foot orange monster is not doing great things for him in terms of normal human interaction. “Here you go, man,” he mumbles. “You’re complicit in this now.” 

Konecny barks out a laugh. “I said I wasn’t going to snitch. Andrea’s always doing that too. She got like, three packs of Reese’s Pieces.” 

“Four,” Sam sniffs. “She got four. It was so beautiful.” 

Konecny rips open the bag of chips and dumps half of it in his mouth in one go. “You’re Sam, right?” he asks around a mouthful of chips. Bits of potato chips go flying everywhere. “Whoops,” he says and closes his mouth. “Mrmmgh.” 

“Jesus,” Sam says, and then mutters under her breath to Nolan, “this the guy you’re in love with?” Nolan does not smack her, but he makes a mental note to cash it in at some point later and then adds another bullet point to his list of reasons why he should probably be getting a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Sure, Obama might’ve improved international cooperation and diplomacy, but did he have to deal with an annoying five-foot-three redheaded media communications intern? No. Exactly. 

“Yeah,” she replies to Travis and dramatically rolls her eyes. “I’m Sam. This is Nolan.” 

Nolan smiles awkwardly at Konecny and Konecny gives him a wave back. “I’m Travis,” he says when he finally swallows. “You guys work with Andrea?” 

“Yeah, she’s my boss,” Sam says. 

“Sam’s just an intern,” Nolan tells Konecny. “You can like, tell her to get you coffee and shit.” 

If looks could kill, Nolan would be sunbathing on a yacht sailing across the Styx River right now. 

“If you tell me to get you coffee, you’re paying for your own funeral,” she says cheerfully and then punches Nolan in the gut which—yeah, he probably deserved that. Konecny smiles and giggles when Nolan doubles over in pain and that—is not doing wonders for Nolan’s ego and his carefully cultivated reputation as unfazeable and unknowable. 

Someone back in the locker room calls for Konecny, and as he waves goodbye and turns to leave, Nolan notices an uneven patch of hair on Konecny’s left jaw, as if he woke up late one morning and in his rush to get out the door, he forgot to shave that one inch strip of facial hair. It’s endearing, but also a little bit voyeuristic, Nolan thinks, to see this small, private, imperfect part of Konecny in a space that is so intensely public, where so many people’s lives overlap, and Nolan feels the top of his stomach pushing against his rib cage.

**__________**

Nolan only really spends about 60% of his time at work in the Gritty fursuit, which is a small blessing that he is incredibly grateful for. Again, it’s not that he hates the Gritty gig, but sometimes it’s good for the mind and soul to have some semblance of normalcy. The other 40% of his job is mainly sitting at a shared desk with Sam (he’s not an intern technically—“not that there’s anything wrong with being an intern! Jesus, Sam, stop punching me!”—but he’s about as far up on the media communications office food chain as Sam is: a bottom-feeder, essentially, so he and Sam get the shared desk) and replying to emails. 

Last week, a teenager sent a 2000-word email detailing the article she was writing for her high school newspaper about capitalism, the inherent need for things that are truly popular to also be ugly, the Flyers’ abysmal powerplay, and the potential to use medically-prescribed LSD to help cure alcoholism. She ended the email asking if Gritty wanted to comment and then quoted a passage from The Art of War. Nolan had sent an email back that read “Capitalism stinks. ACAB, fuck the cops. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes the beauty is the ugly. I’ve got nothing for you about the power play, and neither do the Flyers evidently. You got a research paper about the LSD? Love, Grits.” The capitalist-hating teenager—Allison, she said her name was, had replied with her thanks and appreciation along with a PDF attachment to a SpringerLink article about LSD and alcoholism and then promised she would send her article when she was done with it. 

When he’s not providing soundbites to teenagers, he’s contributing to really long spam email chains with subject lines that read “re: CAN HAMBURGERS CAUSE CANCER?” He’s not really sure how scottmckinlay@theathletic.com got Gritty’s company email address, but it does mean Nolan gets to spend company time cackling over bogus science articles with Sam. 

One Saturday, when Nolan ambles to work fifteen minutes late and holding two iced coffees, there’s already somebody sitting at his desk, chatting with Sam. Nolan stops in his tracks and frowns. His spot at the desk he shares with Sam faces away from the door so he can’t tell who it is; all he can see is a mop of dark hair and an orange t-shirt stretched over broad shoulders. 

Sam looks up in the middle of her conversation and catches sight of Nolan. She waves excitedly, and Anonymous Man turns his head to look at who she’s waving at, and— 

Oh, that’s Travis Konecny. 

Travis Konecny who is sitting at his desk and also waving at Nolan. 

Nolan stalks over to Sam and Konecny. “Hi,” he demands. 

“You’re seventeen minutes late,” Sam says and taps her watch. “Are you asking to get fired?” 

“You’re so annoying. I was just getting coffee,” he says. Sam doesn’t even say thanks, because she’s a bitch, just flutters her eyelashes up at him until he rolls his eyes and hands over the cup of coffee. He turns to Konecny who’s now lining up the pens Nolan has in his pen holder and arranging them by size. “Did you. Did you need something.” 

Konecny leans back in Nolan’s chair and stretches. “Nah,” he says. “I just wanted to see what my good pals Sam and Nolan were up to. Steal any good shit lately?” 

Nolan grabs a chair from the desk nearby and swivels it beside Travis. He sits down slowly, trying not to spook the wild animal that is Travis Konecny. “I’m not going to admit to my crimes in the office,” he says and eyes Konecny suspiciously. 

Sam snorts when she hears this and takes a loud slurp of coffee. “Oh no, we’ve definitely been stealing,” she says casually. “Nol’s trying to figure out how to steal from the soda vending machine so we can get some ginger ale up in this bitch of an office. He likes a challenge,” Sam adds. She winks very conspicuously at Nolan but Konecny is luckily too busy testing out every single pen Nolan has on his desk to notice Sam’s teasing and Nolan’s death glare. 

“No, it’s good,” Konecny says consideringly. He glances up at Sam and Nolan’s matching disbelieving looks and grins. “I think it builds character.” 

“For the vending machine?” 

“No.” Konecny rolls his eyes. “For you. Stealing builds resilience for you.” 

Nolan squints at Konecny. He’s never actually exchanged words with Konecny before—Sam, shut up and stop laughing—he’s mainly just admired from afar and created spiralling-out-of-control fantasies in his brain, like he always does, protected by not only many metres of distance between them but also workplace fraternization rules and the fact that _ his day job is being Gritty_. Nolan’s not too sure what he’s supposed to be making out of Konecny. Does he really think stealing builds resilience or is he an undercover spy agent with a mission to take down all Vending Machine Thieves because of a traumatic childhood experience? 

“Yeah,” Nolan agrees when the silence starts to stretch on for too long and Sam looks like she’s about to say something that Nolan would hate. “Resilience.”

“My brother used to dare me to steal packs of cigarettes from the convenience store when I was kid,” Konecny tells them. “Really taught me how harsh the real world is.” 

“You’re literally a twenty-something-year-old millionaire,” Nolan says incredulously. “You don’t live in the _ real world_.” 

Konecny, on his part, doesn’t look offended, just tilts his head back and forth, as if to say _ yeah, fair. _

“I could steal you a pack of cigarettes, though.” He gives Nolan a look that says _ you know I could. _ Nolan raises an eyebrow and tries to give back a _ you really couldn’t _look. Konecny’s mouth turns up into a smug smile, so Nolan’s not too sure how well his face communicated that thought. “Also,” he adds, holding Nolan’s gaze, “if you wanna steal from the soda vending machine, try the one near AV’s office.” 

“Hm.” Sam jots down something on a sticky note. “You gotta any other trade secrets?” 

“Yeah, but they’ll cost you.” 

“Oh, fuck off, you’re gonna charge us? Again, you’re a twenty-something-year-old millionaire. I’m not above guilting you,” Sam threatens, and points accusingly at Nolan and says, “Last week Nolan called me and asked if he could borrow my bottle of Clorox because his roommate came home drunk and puked all over the floor. Does that make you feel sorry for him? Because it should. C’mon, what other easy vending machines are there to steal from?” 

Nolan sighs, feels a little bit guilty that Sam is under the impression that Kevin is a barely functioning adult. Nolan supposes the stories he tells about Kevin aren’t five star glowing reviews of a human, but Kevin took care of Nolan when he came to Philly fresh out of college and broke and lost in this wide open world, so when Kevin comes home drunk and pukes on the floor, Nolan doesn’t hesitate to beg Sam to use her Clorox because the only cleaning supplies they have is dish detergent. That’s just how the two of them work. He’s not sure if he wants that disastrous part of his life being shared with Konecny, though. 

“Sam doesn’t have a single curtain in her apartment,” he offers. 

“Whatever,” she says, and then, “I like to put on a show.” 

Konecnychokes on a laugh. “Jesus,” he says. “Get some curtains, man.” 

“Sure, yeah, if you Venmo me the money.” 

Zack walks by their desk on his way to the printer and frowns when he sees Konecny. “Sam,” he says disapprovingly. “We’ve talked about the legality _ and _morality of kidnapping.” 

“What!” Sam sputters. “I did not kidnap this asshole! If I had to kidnap someone on the team, it would Ivan, not this rat-looking bastard!” 

“Sam!” Zack gasps, scandalized, at the same time Konecny instinctively protests, “Like, a cool rat, though!” Zack gives Sam a stink-eye and glares at Nolan, presumably for breathing and occupying space, and walks away quickly, clutching his chest and muttering profanities under his breath. 

Nolan groans and buries his head in his arms. “They’re gonna fire you and then fire me by association.” 

“Hey man, it’s okay.” Sam reaches over and pats his head comfortingly. “We’re friends with a millionaire now. Travis here can provide for us.” 

“If you think I’m going to pay for your groceries after you called me a _ rat-looking bastard_, you’re dreaming,” Travis says. “And you’d rather kidnap _ Provy_? You’re going on my list.” 

“Your _ list_?” 

“The list of people who’ve slighted me in this life. So I can take my revenge on them in the next life. I’m moving you to top priority,” he informs Sam. “Don’t worry, Nol,” he says when Nolan gives him an imploring look. “You’re still on the Good Egg list.” 

“Typical,” Sam mutters and spends the rest of the morning pelting Travis with paperclips. 

That’s the first time Nolan comes to the office and finds that Travis has usurped his seat, but it’s certainly not the last. The next Wednesday, he stumbles into the office—late, again—still half-asleep with his dress shirt wrinkled and his headphones blasting early 2000s Britney Spears, and sees a familiar backwards cap and a Flyers’ orange sweatshirt rummaging through his desk drawers. 

“You’re back?” he asks the back of Travis’ head. 

Travis pokes his head out from inside the drawers when he hears Nolan’s voice from above him and visibly brightens. There’s a small red scratch right on his chin, scabbing, and Nolan stares at it for a while; he wants to brush his thumb over the cut and press down on it until it bleeds and watch Travis’ eyes go wide and dark and his mouth to fall open. Nolan doesn’t remember Travis getting high sticked or taking a puck to the face or anything last game, so he wonders if this was another razor incident. God knows that Travis does not seem like the kind of person to know how to shave safely. 

“Yep,” Travis says and sticks his head back into the drawers. His voice comes out muffled when he says, “Sam said there’s a paper airplane contest in the break room in an hour. Have you got any fucking paper?” 

Nolan narrows his eyes at Travis and then at Sam’s empty spot at the desk. “How come I didn’t know there was a paper airplane contest today?” he demands and Travis shrugs. “Don’t you have practice today or something?” 

“Optional skate,” Travis explains impatiently. “Nolan, c’mon, paper. I need to win this contest.” 

Nolan yanks off his headphones and stomps over to Zack’s desk and steals a stack of printer paper. “Here,” he huffs, setting the stack in front of Travis. “I wouldn’t bother trying though.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because Sam wins this contest every time,” Nolan says and points to the tallied chart on the miniature chalkboard nailed to the door of the kitchen. “She’s literally won seven times in a row. It’s no use.” 

Travis rolls his eyes. “Not with that fuckin’ attitude.” He pulls over Sam’s chair from the other side of the desk and gestures for Nolan to sit down beside him. “Sam’s only got one brain, we’ve got two.” 

“You’ve got like half a brain, maximum,” Nolan mutters, but he sits down and takes a sheet of paper, folds it in half, and then half again. 

“What, and you’re an aerospace engineer?” Travis retorts, snarky. 

Nolan glances at Travis from the corner of his eye and has to bite down on the disgusting smile that’s threatening to take over his face when he sees Travis push up the sleeves of his sweatshirt and steal the one bobby pin left in the mint box Nolan and Sam keep on their desk to hold miscellaneously useful items. Travis’ face is not even half a metre away from Nolan’s and it’s a little hard for Nolan to not stare. He’s—he’s just a big fan of Travis, okay? He likes how Travis has got the tip of his tongue poking out and he needs to keep pushing hair out of his eyes even with the stolen bobby pin and how his eyebrows are furrowed like this paper airplane contest is the most important thing in his life. 

(So, maybe it _ is _a crush. Whatever. It’s chill. Nolan’s chill.)

“Nol,” Travis says, breaking Nolan out of his in-love-with-Travis-Konecny reverie. Travis raises an eyebrow. “Dude, if I have to carry us here, Sam’s gonna win for the eighth time.” 

Nolan scowls and wills himself not to blush. He smooths down a crease on his half-finished paper plane and aggressively folds another wing. 

Between the two of them, they manage to fold two dozen different paper plane designs. One of them is named The Rat Bastard and has orange stripes up and down its wings. When they stumble into the break down at 9:30 AM on the dot with an armful of paper planes, Sam bursts out laughing. She’s got three planes in front of her. They look exactly the same as each other and also like every single other plane she’s folded for this stupid paper plane contest. Nolan has some suspicions about Sam’s planes; he’s not sure how you can cheat at a paper airplane folding, but Sam’s found a way to do it, he’s sure. 

“Don’t know what you’re laughing at,” Nolan says disdainfully to Sam. 

“Yeah,” Travis agrees. He crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at Sam and says, “You’re looking at the new champs, bud. Maybe you should start showing some respect around here.” 

“Okay,” Sam snorts. “We’ll see about that, sweetheart.”

Andrea calls out the flying order and the amount of cash on the line this time ($25.52—“and since I’m not above shaming Zack for being a cheap bastard, he’s the one who contributed the two cents,” Andrea informs everyone gathered around her and raises an eyebrow pointedly in Zack’s direction). They line up in the hallway with their planes and Andrea slaps some tape on the ground for the starting line. “Okay,” Andrea says, “before we start. Ground rules, same as usual: three tries, nobody gets a redo, tiebreaker will be decided at the end if needed, but we probably won’t need it if this goes like any of the other seven times we’ve done this. Also! We’ve got a new contestant! The paper airplane community is growing! Everyone, say hi to Travis!” 

The Flyers’ media communications staff gives a rousing cheer for Travis who waves dorkily at everyone and grins bashfully at the floor. 

Lauren throws her plane first; it dives headfirst into the ground. Zack howls with laughter behind her and Lauren whips around to smack him. Sam throws fifth and it goes an illegitimate 32.5 feet. The second farthest plane (Zack’s) is at 15 feet. Again: not sure how you can cheat at paper planes, but Sam’s found a way. 

“Jesus,” Travis mutters under his breath. “What the fuck?” 

“I told you,” Nolan hisses back. “She’s cheating, there’s no way a regular fucking paper airplane can go thirty feet.” 

“It’s a _ paper plane_,” Travis says. “How do you cheat with a _ paper plane_?” 

“Look, I don’t know either, but I’m just saying that ain’t normal.” 

Sam’s second throw goes 32.7 feet and her third throw goes a whopping 35 feet. 

“This is some kind of dark magic,” Travis says disgustedly. He crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at Sam. “Hey, can we get like a video review on that or something?” he calls. 

Sam flips him off. “Suck my dick, rat boy,” she gloats. 

“No video review,” Andrea confirms. 

Travis pulls a face and sulks back to Nolan, jamming his hands into his pockets. 

“Second place is pretty good,” Nolan tries. 

“What’s the point of playing if you’re not gonna win?” 

Nolan rolls his eyes; athletes are maybe the worst kind of people, he thinks. By the time it’s their turn to throw, Sam has monopoly over first, second, and third place planes and has taken to smiling smugly every time someone fails to get a plane past hers. 

Nolan throws their first plane—a classic dart design, folded by Travis and modified slightly by Nolan. It makes it 18 feet before doing a nosedive into the wall. Travis makes a wounded sound beside him and Nolan can hear Sam’s gloating aura getting stronger. 

“Okay, okay,” Travis says, “my turn. Pass me that weird gliding one you made.” Nolan dutifully hands over the plane and holds his breath as Travis gives it a gentle upwards nudge into the air. It sails through the air, almost at the ceiling, and he hears Travis inhale sharply when it passes eighteen feet and then twenty feet and then twenty-five feet and—

“Fuck,” Travis says sadly, watching the slow descent of their plane to the ground. 

“31.8 feet,” Andrea says, impressed, and jots down the number in her notebook. “Pretty good for a rookie. Okay, last throw.” 

Nolan turns to Travis and asks, “Rat Bastard?” 

“Rat Bastard,” Travis confirms. “You wanna throw him?” 

“You don’t wanna throw him?” Nolan says, surprised. 

“Nah.” Travis shrugs and lovingly places Rat Bastard in Nolan’s hands. “I trust you with him. You deserve to throw our prodigal son.” He bends down to kiss Rat Bastard. “Goodbye and godspeed, my son,” he whispers and gives their paper airplane a little tap on the wing. 

Nolan doesn’t whisper any encouragements to their paper airplane, because he’s not that crazy, just stares at it intently for a couple of seconds and hopes that Rat Bastard gets the message. “Ready?” he asks Travis. He nods once and Nolan takes a breath and lets Rat Bastard fly. They watch with bated breath; Rat Bastard flies past Lauren’s little pile of plane crashes one foot from the starting line, Sarah’s decent ten-foot sprinter plane, Zack’s taped and stapled together Frankenstein plane at fifteen feet, past their first throw, their second throw, then past Sam’s first throw, then her second throw, then—

Travis whoops and crashes into Nolan, wrapping his arms around Nolan’s neck. There’s a rousing cheer from behind them as Andrea announces the official distance: 35.1 feet. “Rat Bastard!” Travis yells into Nolan’s ear. “What a fucking beauty!” 

“Holy shit!” Nolan yells back. He picks up Travis before he can think about what he’s doing and spins him around in a circle. With Nolan lifting Travis up, they’re almost face-to-face. Travis’ head is tipped back, laughing, and he’s still got his hair pinned back by the bobby pin. Nolan places Travis back on his feet gently and moves to pull his arms back but Travis just buries himself into Nolan’s chest in a tight clutching hug. 

“Rat Bastard, the best of all of us,” he says and wipes away a single fake tear. 

Travis shows up at the office again the next afternoon, on his day off. He comes in with a Michael’s bag and tells Sam to find her own beeswax when she asks if it’s “arts and crafts day at the office.” 

“Okay, but seriously,” Nolan asks when Sam throws her arms up in exasperation and stomps to the kitchen, presumably to steal the homemade toffee Lauren brought in that morning. “What _ is _that?” He tries to peer into the plastic bag. 

Travis reaches into the bag and pulls out a picture frame. “Ta-da!” 

“Do you—are you—do you have a photo you want me to frame?” Nolan asks, confused. 

“No, fuck that, I’m going to frame Rat Bastard,” Travis says cheerfully. 

“The paper plane?” 

“Not _ just _the paper plane. The record-breaking paper plane.” 

Nolan sighs, tells Travis he thinks this is a huge waste of time, but he pushes his laptop with the email from management about an event Gritty’s supposed to be doing next month that Nolan’s been putting off replying to for three weeks away anyway. He takes Rat Bastard out from the drawer where Travis had tucked him into. 

“There he is!” Travis exclaims. “God, look at that motherfucker. A man among men.” 

“Is Rat Bastard a man?” 

“Rat Bastard is whatever they want to be,” Travis answers and starts dismantling the frame. 

**__________**

“You guys went to college, right?” Travis asks. 

They’re hiding in the supplies closet. Sam’s eating the salad Nolan brought for lunch and glaring moodily at the stack of printer paper on the shelves. She’s supposed to be printing some prelim drafts of a poster she designed for a 90s Night event but the printer had started making an asthmatic wheezing sound it definitely was not supposed to be making, which was already the first sign of trouble. Then Sam had kicked it—a reasonable decision to make, Nolan will admit—and the printer had completely stopped functioning. Nolan had tried switching out the ink cartridge and then hooked it up to Sam’s laptop with a USB cable but no dice. Travis stuck his head into the like, interior of the printer (Nolan did not you could take apart a printer like that) and attempted some complicated Printer Engineering thing, but again—nothing. So the printer was broken and Sam still hadn’t printed out her poster drafts and Zack was getting kinda loud and antsy at his desk; all around a bad situation. They decided to take a time-out and have lunch in the supplies closet. 

“Yeah,” Sam bites out. She crunches down a forkful of lettuce. “What a scam.” 

“My prof once tried to get me to pay for a workbook that was literally 200 pages of _ lined paper_,” Nolan says. 

“Oh yeah, that’s rough,” Sam says, disinterested. “But listen to this: I had a prof who was really into like, frogs or whatever. Wrote an entire goddamn textbook about _ frogs. _Which was cool or whatever, but she was teaching like, Russian Women in American Literature. Anyway, she was so amped up about the frogs that she forced us to buy the stupid textbook and then spent three classes just reading out excerpts from the stupid frog textbook. Like, what the fuck!” Sam ends her monologue by stabbing the fork through the plastic salad lid. 

Travis winces and scoots away from Sam. 

“Damn,” Nolan says. “Was the frog textbook any good?” 

“Yeah, it was pretty fucking cool, actually,” Sam admits. “Her husband was a children’s illustrator or something, so there were these funny little comics about frogs that her husband drew.” 

“Aw, cute,” Nolan says, and then asks Travis, “You go to college?” 

Travis says, “Nah,” and picks at a scab on his wrist. “Just wanted to know what it was like, I guess.” 

“Not as exciting as playing in the National Hockey League,” Nolan assures him, wry. “It’s just four years of alternating between stressed, tired, and horny.” 

“I was hungover for all college,” Sam says. “Like, I got drunk on the first night I was there and the hangover lasted for four entire years.” 

“And you have to pay for it,” Nolan says. 

“Oh yeah, fuck that noise. Fuckin’ bullshit.” 

Travis smiles—he smiles the tiny gremlin smile, the one where his tongue pokes out and there’s a flash of teeth and the laugh lines right at the corner of his mouth deepen and his eyes disappear into two crescent-shaped crinkles. Sometimes when Nolan’s really deep into feelings about Travis he likes to play a game where he counts the number of different faces Travis pulls: the gremlin smile, the laugh with his head thrown back and his throat bared, the face he makes when he’s concentrating and deep in focus and his eyebrows furrow and his mouth twists to one side. The record is six in one minute, he thinks. 

Sam’s phone buzzes from beside her. She glances down at the notification and groans. “Fuck, that’s Zack. I’ll be crying at my desk, I guess.” She stands up and dunks her salad container into the garbage. “See you losers. Nol, you’re driving me home, yeah?” 

“What? No, I didn’t agree to that.” 

“Thanks,” she says, “I’ll meet you downstairs at five. I’ll even pay for gas this time! See you around, Trav.” 

When Sam leaves, Travis leans over to tug on a loose thread on Nolan’s sweater. When Nolan turns his head to look at him, Travis sucks in a breath and blurts out, “You don’t think I’m too like, stupid or whatever to hang with y’all?” like he’s been holding it in his mouth for a while, trying to swallow down the words, but they just refused to go down and—that’s. 

“No,” Nolan says slowly, wondering where this was coming from, hopes that he didn’t say anything that made Travis feel like he wasn’t qualified or some shit to be friends with him and Sam, because that is—the opposite of anything Nolan has ever thought about Travis. “No,” he repeats, more firmly this time. “Where’s this coming from, man?” 

Travis shrugs. “Just—I don’t know. You guys are just. Y’know. Cool people. Sam’s probably the cleverest person I know. When we were doing the dog photoshoots, she was there to supervise and she like, absolutely outchirped and destroyed G, it was honestly beautiful. And, you’re like—y’know.” Travis makes a flimsy up and down hand gesture at Nolan. “That.” He coughs. “Yeah. Feel like I can’t keep up with you guys sometimes.” 

He averts his eyes when he finishes talking, stares up at the ceiling. Nolan furrows his eyebrows together. “Teeks, you’re—you’re not stupid, man. I don’t know who told you that but—” 

“Well, yeah, I guess I know how to do normal adult stuff or whatever, but—” 

Nolan shakes his head, presses his lips together; he wants to grab his shoulders and jerk him around and tell him to stop thinking about whatever he’s thinking about, wants to find out who made Travis insecure about this, hunt down whoever told Travis he wasn’t good enough. “No, that’s not… that’s not what I mean,” he says. “It’s—college doesn’t say shit about you. Sam doesn’t make dope ass graphics because she took like, Intro to Design 1000 or some shit. Like, that pass you made against Detroit a couple of nights ago, when you got crosschecked and the ref didn’t call it but you found the pass through that dude’s skate anyway? That—that’s not _ stupid_, Trav.”

Travis is quiet for a while. “You think so?” he finally says, uncertain, and he makes a face that makes Nolan hungry to kill. There’s a burning in his stomach. He never wants to see Travis’ face like that again. 

“I know so,” Nolan says, quiet but forceful, and swallows when Travis glances up at him through his eyelashes. He thinks about leaning down and pushing his hair back and kissing him. He doesn’t do that; instead, Nolan flicks his forehead, watches the gremlin smile slowly come back to his face, and feels a small wave of relief. 

And then Travis says, “That _ was _ a pretty sick pass, eh?” and whatever moment they were having passes. He asks, surprised, “You watch the games?” 

Jesus Christ, this guy, seriously. Nolan just said three complete sentences, three extremely complimentary complete sentences, and Travis wants to know if he _ watches _ the _ games. _“Yeah, asshole, I work for the Flyers.” 

“Well, I don’t know!”

Nolan rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says. “Sorry if we made you feel like, you couldn’t—you know, be yourself or some shit. I don’t care about college. It’s like—whatever.” 

“Jesus,” Travis says. “_Be yourself. _You sound like G. God, you really hate talking about your feelings, eh?” 

“_No_,” Nolan starts to argue, but Travis interrupts him, says, “No, it’s okay, really. Thanks, man. For saying that stuff. I—yeah, thanks.” 

“Whatever, it’s fine,” Nolan says and hesitates before adding, as flippantly as he possibly can, “I don’t know who said all that shit to you but I think you’re cool as hell, man.” 

“I _ am _ pretty dope, yeah?” 

“Fuck you,” Nolan says. “You know what? I take it back, fuck this—” 

Travis punches him. “You can’t take it back!” he yelps. “No take-backs! You complimented me and I’m never gonna stop talking about it.” 

“See if I ever say anything nice about you again,” Nolan grumbles. 

Travis grins and tackles Nolan to the ground. There’s a split second just before Travis gets his arms around him, right when he’s on the verge of tipping over and crashing to the floor, when he stares up at Travis and he feels his throat crawling up his throat, spitting with affection and an uncontained want. The seam in his chest that kept all of this enclosed inside of him is threatening to rip open, and in Nolan’s mind, he can see those threads already loosening. 

**__________**

The next game at home is against Dallas. It is—not great. Giroux has something like eight shots on goals and absolutely fucking nothing to show for it. Travis gets slashed, it doesn’t get called, and he blows up in the ref’s face, his mouth running a hundred miles an hour with a full tank of gas. 

Nolan’s back in the Gritty fursuit, shooting t-shirts from the t-shirt cannon with a proficiency that scares himself a little bit; if he can do this with a t-shirt cannon, imagine how fucking lethal he’d be at paintball. During intermission, Gritty chases a couple of kids around the rink while they scream with delight, picks one particularly annoying kid up and heaves him into the penalty box. When the game fucking finally wraps up and the Flyers dejectedly head back to the locker room, Gritty goes out into the concourse to wave bye at all the miserable fans who paid actual, genuine, good American dollars to watch that shitshow of a game. A group of teenage boys come up to Gritty and asks them for an autograph, so Gritty obliges, signs a couple of hats and a phone case. By the time Gritty’s finished signing autographs and taking photos and just causing general chaos in the food concession area by chucking popcorn at passer-bys, it’s almost midnight. Nolan’s dead on his feet and he wants to get the fuck out of his godforsaken Gritty costume and crash in bed. 

When Andrea starts to pack up her audio equipment and puts her coat on, Nolan breathes out an audible sigh of relief. Andrea hears him, gives him a wry smile. “You did good today, kid,” she says. “Rest up, yeah?” 

She doesn’t need to tell him twice. Nolan stuffs the fursuit into a storage closet, goes to take a piss, and then trudges to the employee parking lot. He drives back across the bridge into Jersey and makes a hasty back-up park into the closest parking spot he can find by their office, and then sprints up the stairs to Flyers’ Media Communications floor to see if Sam needs a ride. 

“Sam,” he calls into the nearly empty office. “Sam, my great gal friend, you want a ride home?” 

“Okay _wow_, if you call me your great gal friend again, I’m gonna file a complaint to management,” Sam says and pushes her gigantic headphones off her head. Most of the lights in the office are turned off, just the one fluorescent in the break room still flickering on and off, because the office building is decrepit and decaying, and Sam’s tiny Ikea lamp. 

“Do you want a fucking ride home or not?” Nolan demands. He peers over Sam’s shoulder and sees that she’s still working on the same set of photos she was trying to edit the other day, the ones featuring the Flyers and also puppies, and she’s got Travis and a huge bulldog pulled up on Photoshop, zoomed in on his face. It’s, like—a little bit terrifying to see Travis’ teeth that up close, but—but. Nolan’s never noticed how Travis gets all these tiny crinkles underneath his eyes when he smiles or how the top of his nose goes all scrunched up and wrinkly. 

“God, I would love a ride,” Sam yawns and rubs a hand over her face, “but I gotta finish these stupid photos. Why. The fuck are there so many players on this stupid team. Can we trade them? Can we trade all them so I don’t need to adjust contrast levels for sixty-four million photos?” 

It’s truly a testament to how tired—or pissed off—Sam is that she doesn’t even notice Nolan making literal heart eyes at her computer screen. He plops himself into the chair in front of Sam and digs around in his bottom drawer for a while and pulls out a bag of chips. “I’m just the mascot, man,” he says and crunches down on a chip. “I can’t control anything.” 

“Fuck this,” Sam mutters and snatches the bag of chips from Nolan. She jams her headphones back onto her head and blasts the volume up to the highest she can, hunching down to continue glaring at her computer. 

“I’m gonna take a nap, wake me up when you’re done with the dog pics,” Nolan mumbles and puts his head down on his arms and Sam doesn’t hear him at all because ABBA is screaming and asking Fernando if he can still hear the drums. Nolan shuts his eyes and starts counting his breaths, thinks about the Farg across the bridge, thinks about Travis in the locker room peeling off his equipment, seething and pissed off from the game and the missed slashing call, thinks about Travis, in general, and then about—nothing because he passes out on the desk. When he comes to, it’s because Sam’s flickering the lights on and off and shouting at him to _ wake up WAKE UP I’m done with the stupid fucking photos, fucking finally. _

“Jesus,” Nolan says and blinks into the light show Sam currently has going. The clock on Zack’s desk blinks 2:07 A.M. “_Jesus_.” 

“I want a fucking drink,” Sam declares. She’s already got her coat on and she wraps a scarf around her neck and it’s so huge that all Nolan can see of Sam’s face are two very judgemental eyes blinking up at him. 

“It’s like, two in the morning,” Nolan says, and zips up his own coat, hurrying down the stairs after Sam. 

“So?” Sam calls over her shoulder. “It’s Friday and it’s Philly. I know a place.” 

And that’s apparently the end of the conversation. Nolan lets Sam lead him into a bar a block and a half north, a real hole in the wall place; it doesn’t even have a front door because it used to be part of the unit next door and they have to hop over a snowbank to get in through the back. 

“What kinda fucking place is this?” Nolan mutters, smacking snow off his pants. 

“Right,” Sam rolls her eyes, “I always forget you’re a loser and don’t do anything fun in your free time.” 

“I do fun things!” Nolan protests instinctively. “Like—” He wracks his brain for a fun thing he’s done recently, but the first things that come to mind are being coerced to bake carrot muffins with Kevin last Sunday and then getting into a very heated argument with Kevin’s brother over Skype about the JonBenet Ramsey murder (he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on their conversation, it’s just that Kevin was Skype-calling him in their shared living room and Nolan couldn’t just _ let it go _when he heard Kevin’s brother say “but there’s no evidence that it was the brother who did it!”) and he’s not sure how well those rank on a list of fun things you could do in your free time. (Even if he totally won the JonBenet argument.) (He’s supposedly never invited to a Hayes family Thanksgiving ever because the Hayes don’t respect people who don’t respect the importance of having tangible evidence and the scientific method.) 

Sam smirks when Nolan briefly thinks about whether he wants to bring that up and decides against and shuts his mouth. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” 

The inside of the dive bar is dim and it’s a lot quieter than most places in Philly on Friday would be, just a couple of friend groups chatting and then a few stragglers at the bar. There’s a small television tucked into a shelf behind the bar and it’s playing an old episode of Friends, the sound all crackly, and the screen occasionally flickers off into blue static. Nolan slides into the stool beside Sam. She orders both of them a hard cider and then sweet talks her way into getting a free side of fries. 

“I’m the best, I know,” Sam says, sickly sweet. 

“Fuck you,” Nolan replies. 

“You’re welcome,” she says smugly, meeting his eyes over the rim of her glass, and then slides her gaze down the bar and nearly chokes on her beer. “Nol, holy shit, look behind you—wait no, don’t make it so fucking obvious—is that—” 

Nolan glances over his shoulder to where she’s looking and that’s—nope, Nolan doesn’t have enough emotional bandwidth to do that right now. Nolan whips his head back forward and glares at Sam. “What’s he doing here?” he hisses. Travis is sitting on the other side of the bar, nursing a beer, and a pretty blonde girl is sitting beside him, obviously very into him. 

“How would I know,” Sam hisses back. 

“This is the shittiest dive bar on this side of Philly and he just _ randomly _found it?” Nolan says incredulously. “There’s no way.” 

“Well, _ I _didn’t tell him about it,” Sam snaps, and then, “This is my hide-out. I come here during my lunch break when I can’t stand looking at Zack’s stupid earnest face anymore, why would I tell anyone about it?” 

Nolan lets out a strangled cry, but like, he does it quietly, so Travis doesn’t hear him and look over to see what’s going on and then make life-endingly awkward eye contact with Nolan again. That’s already happened once too many times, thank you very much. 

“Fuck it,” Sam says, “let’s invite him over.” 

“What,” Nolan intones. “Why. Would we do that. Let’s not—do that. He’s. With somebody.” Although—to some capacity, Nolan almost feel compelled to say yes—but in the same he feels compelled to drive into the oncoming traffic or to watch videos of people perform an appendix removal surgery on themselves or to stick his hand into the open flame, not really because he wants to do them, but because of how objectively awful and terrifying they are that he’s just curious to see if he’ll make it out to the other side alive and breathing. 

“Travis!” Sam calls down the bar, like she’s privy to all of Nolan’s intrusive thoughts, and Nolan can almost _ hear _Travis’ ears perk up when he hears Sam’s voice, can hear Travis turn towards them, visibly happy to see them. 

“Sam,” Nolan hisses viciously; every day, Nolan’s urge to depart this Earth strengthens. 

“Sam!” Travis says cheerfully, appearing beside Nolan like a stray cat he can’t get rid of. Nolan glances behind him; the girl Travis was with has slipped off her stool and relocated to the other side of the bar. “Nolan! My two favourite media people!” 

“Can you say that again?” Sam demands, taking out her phone. “Can you say it really loudly and really slowly so I can record it and show it to Andrea?” 

Travis laughs and slides into the stool to Nolan’s other side. “No,” he points a finger at Sam, “that’s a secret between us. Okay?” He’s wearing one of his three million animal hats even though it absolutely does not do anything for him functionally. He picks up Nolan’s cider and drinks like, half of it, like the asshole he is. 

“Oooh,” Sam says. “Is this like a club? A secret society?” 

“Nothing’s a secret with you,” Nolan sighs at Sam. She raises an eyebrow pointedly and takes a very judgemental gulp of her beer. The set of her shoulders and the smirk pulling her mouth upwards says, _ Wanna bet? _

“That’s really fucking freaky,” Travis says from beside him. 

Nolan turns to Travis to ask him what he means by _ freaky _and instead watches a blush crawl up Travis' neck for whatever reason, the alcohol probably, he looks like he’s been drinking for a while, and he wants so badly to see just how red he can make Travis, just how long he can make Travis hold out. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, bites down on it, hard, to stop himself from saying regrettable, and—watches Travis’ eyes widen and flicker down, like maybe he wants to—wants to do something about Nolan’s mouth. Nolan’s exhausted, right to the bone, and he’s not thinking when he lets himself look at Travis: the column of his neck, how his shirts fits nicely, snug around the shoulders, the stupid hunting tattoos he has wrapped around his forearm. 

“Uh,” Sam coughs and Nolan rips his eyes away from Travis’ arms and avoids staring at the flush high up on his cheekbones, plants his gaze back onto his glass of beer, the bar counter, the bartender, somewhere it should be. 

“What?” he says belatedly. 

“What,” Travis repeats, hoarse, and his voice cracks. The flush on his cheeks darken again and Nolan can’t—he can’t peel his eyes away this time. Suddenly, he understands everyone’s fascination with his stupid cheeks. 

“Jesus,” Sam mutters. She waves the bartender down and orders another beer. 

Travis clears his throat and downs the rest of Nolan’s beer in one go, tipping his head back to drain all of it. Nolan doesn’t say anything. Tries not to think about sucking a bruise right there, behind his ear and covered by his mess of a hair, so nobody would even be able to see it, but Travis would know and Nolan would know and that’s really all it takes for Nolan to get half-hard in his jeans. “I was saying that it’s like, really freaky when you guys do the thing,” Travis says when he finishes the beer. He gestures between the two of them. “Y’know, when you do the talking thing with your eyes.” 

“Oh, like this?” Sam asks and grabs Nolan’s chin, jerking him to face her. She glares at him for a couple of seconds. Nolan’s eyebrows rise higher and higher each second. 

“So? What’d she say?” Travis asks when Sam releases his chin. 

“That your powerplay fuckin’ stinks,” Nolan replies and thinks maybe that was a line too far, but Travis just laughs and flips both of them off, doesn’t look like he’s about to sue Nolan for defamation. 

“Okay, hotshot,” Travis rolls his eyes. “You got any ideas for the powerplay?” 

“Take you off of it, for one,” Sam snarks. 

“Decline the powerplay,” Nolan offers. “Just say no thanks.” 

“Tell the other team to close their eyes.” 

“If I were the Flyers’ powerplay, I would simply just not suck.” 

“Thanks,” Travis says, “Thanks, guys, I really appreciate that. I’ll pass that on to AV.” 

By the time the bartender kicks them out, it’s nearing four o’clock in the morning. Sam refuses Nolan’s offer for a drive and orders an Uber, winking at Nolan on her way out. Travis is barely upright, drunk and exhausted. 

“Hey, buddy,” Nolan says. “I can drive you home but we gotta walk across the street.” 

“Yerp,” Travis slurs and blinks sleepily at Nolan. 

“Is that a yes?” Nolan asks. 

“Yerp,” he says again. 

Nolan shoves Travis’ ugly camo jacket in his face in response and watches with faint amusement as Travis tries to put the jacket on backwards with both arms in one sleeve. “Jesus Christ,” he says, “how much did you even drink?” 

“Like, two,” Travis mumbles. He manages to get one arm through the sleeve. 

“At least five,” Nolan says and reaches over to tug Travis’ other arm through the sleeve. “Stay still,” he says and smacks Travis’ hands away when he tries to do the zipper. He bends down to get to Travis’ height and pulls the zipper up. “There you go, man. Can’t take you anywhere.” 

“You didn’t take me _ here_,” Travis whines, “I got myself here.” 

“Yeah, and maybe that was a mistake.” 

"Nah," Travis says. "Got to see you, didn't I?" 

Nolan doesn't have anything to say to that, what the fuck. Instead, he asks, “How’d you even know about this place?” 

“Uh,” Travis thinks and if Nolan's subject changing was too obvious, Travis doesn't comment on it. “Got lost once driving to the rink and came in here to ask for directions.” Of course he did. 

The bartender starts to pointedly wipe down the bar counter in front of him and the last of the stragglers have already left the bar, so Nolan yanks his own coat on, and heaves Travis off of his stool. He laughs when Nolan puts his arm around his waist to steady him. “Tickles,” Travis giggles. “I’m ticklish.” 

“Great,” Nolan says and stumbles to the door, Travis drunk and warm by his side, making snorting sounds whenever Nolan adjusts his grip around his waist. 

“That was a stupid fuckin’ game,” Travis says when they’re finally outside. 

“Sure was.” 

“It was a fuckin’ slash.” 

“Almost chopped your wrist in half there,” Nolan says. 

“Yeah!” Travis exclaims and points triumphantly at Nolan’s face. “Exactly! Fuck him! Fuck that guy!” He continues cursing out Hedman for slashing him for a couple of minutes before he ostensibly exhausts himself and falls silent. Nolan doesn’t think Travis knows how to exist in silence though, because not even five seconds passes before he says, “I hate losing so much.” 

Nolan thinks about Travis saying _ what’s the point of playing if you don’t win? _during that paper airplane contest and snorts. “Yeah, I know. It sucks.” 

“Ugh,” Travis groans, trips over a curb, and would’ve eaten shit had Nolan not caught his hood. “I fuckin’ wish,” he says and almost trips again, “that I’d never have to lose a stupid game again.” 

“File a complaint to Bettman,” Nolan says. 

“Hm,” Travis says, like he’s actually considering sending a memo to Bettman, and then, “Nah. I don’t even know his address.” 

“_That’s _ the biggest problem?” 

“Yeah,” Travis says in a tone that lets Nolan know he thinks he’s stupid. 

It starts to snow just as they’re crossing the street towards the office building, fat snowflakes lazily drifting down, and Philly is so quiet underneath the foot of snow, every sound dampened and muffled in a way that makes Nolan feel homesick all of a sudden, misses the way Winnipeg would dial down the volume every winter when it snowed, like the entire city was going into hibernation. 

“Do you miss home?” he asks Travis, weirdly curious. 

“Like, Clachan?” 

“Uh,” Nolan says, and then remembers Travis talking about the town he grew up in, remembers how careful Travis’ mouth sounded around the words “home” when he mentioned Clachan, like it was a place he tried not to think about too often, like it was a complicated place. “Yeah, Clachan.” 

Travis shrugs and stumbles because he's drunk enough to have lost most executive function. Nolan catches him, gently pulls him back to his side, a place Nolan has seemingly already carved out and vacated for Travis. “Kind of,” Travis says, and then, “yeah.” He sighs softly and comes to an abrupt stop. “But Philly’s been better to me. I like Philly.” And—Nolan gets that, gets that feeling of loving a place with your whole heart, and not having it love you back. People always make fun of him for being from Winnipeg, but he became the person he is now, in all the ways that matter at least, there, and that makes Winnipeg more than just a city to him. Still, when he thinks back to all the memories he has of that city, the most vivid ones—university—are not very good. 

“Sure,” is all he says. He turns to look down at Travis. “Didn’t say you didn’t. You okay, bud?” 

Travis doesn’t answer and sits down on the snowbank at the corner of the curb instead. Nolan hesitates, eyes the empty street, and then sits down beside him. He feels his ass getting wet through his jeans from the snow almost instantly and doesn’t find himself particularly caring. 

“What are we doing here?” Nolan asks, almost whispering, careful not to crack the silence of the night open, right down the centre, with too loud of a voice. 

Travis shushes him. “I’m listening.” 

“Listening to what, bud?” 

“I’m listening,” Travis says, “to the… world… y’know…” he trails off and Nolan very much does not know but it's too late to ask. Travis faceplants into Nolan’s shoulder, his turkey hat falling off and taking a dive into the snow. Nolan stares at the top of Travis's head for a while. Like, is this guy for fucking real? He doesn't think so—maybe some dark cavern of his mind thought he was too lonely and created this hallucination of a person that looked and smelled and talked like Travis, this hallucination of a person that Nolan’s brain knew Nolan would like and love to a staggering degree. 

He watches Travis’ breath freeze, all the tiny condensed crystals rising up and disappearing into the cold Philly night, and tries to listen to what Travis is listening to—the distance squeal of tires against the asphalt, the wind in the trees, the clanking of stools being stacked on top of each other from back inside the bar. When Travis tilts over a bit, Nolan places a hand on the back of his neck to keep him from falling over, relishes the warmth of his body, and thinks about the place that Travis calls home: Clachan, or maybe Ottawa, or Philly, or maybe somewhere else entirely, and wonders what kind of place in this world could raise someone like Travis. Somewhere that’s unafraid to raise kids with reckless hands and fingertips burnt from chasing too much adventure, somewhere that doesn’t teach you how to tame the wild horses, just teaches you to run with them, so by the time you grow up and move away, you’ll have never figured out how to tame anything, not even a heart. 

When Nolan lived with grandparents on their farm, he would look out his window every morning and try to imagine what else there could possibly be in this world besides miles and miles of farmland; he felt like maybe he was a seed planted too late, a bird hatched too early, seemingly predisposed to continue through life being a little late or too early, always a clock’s tick away from the golden hour. He stares down at the top of Travis’ head and thinks that maybe life could go fuck herself: he got himself through high school, got himself through those awful, _ awful _two years of college, got himself here, sitting on a snow bank with Travis Konecny snoring into his shoulder. 

**__________**

When Nolan drops Travis off at his apartment, he punches his number into Travis’ phone and instructs him to text him in the morning so Nolan knows he didn’t choke on his vomit or something. 

“Mmkay,” Travis mutters and flings his entire body onto his sofa. 

Nolan drives himself home, takes a shower, and passes the fuck out in bed. 

When he wakes up at like, three in the afternoon the next day, he feels like he’s slept through an Ice Age. His phone buzzes from where it’s charging on the floor and when Nolan goes to check it, he’s got a billion new messages; most of them are from Sam with various sex-related emojis and then a photo of her and her girlfriend’s cat, which Nolan saves onto his phone because their cat is disgustingly adorable, but the most recent ones are from an unknown number. 

Frowning, Nolan taps on the notification and reads the message. 

**from unknown****  
** how much did i fuckin drink last night  
follow up question  
did sam show me a pic of her gf  
and then did i say she looked like a badger

Nolan honest to God laughs out loud. 

**to unknown ** **  
** yeah you did you maniac  
great job on that 

**from unknown ** **  
** fuuuuuuuuuuuuck  
fuuck   
FUck 

Nolan watches the little speech bubble for a while and leaves Travis to simmer in his regret to brush his teeth. By the time Nolan stumbles into the kitchen, it’s mid-afternoon and Philly is buried underneath what the weather channel says is a foot and a half of snow. He buries his head in the fridge, still blinking away the sleep crusting around his eyes. 

“You good, Pats?” Kevin says from the living room, sounding way too chipper. 

“Fuck you,” Nolan says. He grabs the orange juice and chugs it straight from the carton. 

“Oh, c’mon,” Kevin complains, “we literally have cups. Like, we literally went to buy cups last weekend.” 

Nolan wipes his sleeve over his mouth and sends the most sardonic look he can manage at Kevin. “You haven’t even taken them out of the package.” 

“So?” Kevin demands. “Why do I have to do everything around here? _ You _take them out of the package!” 

“Yeah, but I wanna drink OJ straight from the carton.” 

“I hate you, bud.” 

“Yeah, same.” 

Kevin glares at Nolan for a couple of seconds and then grins. “So where were you last night? Didn’t you have work?” 

“Went out with Sam after,” Nolan says. 

“Like, at one in the morning?” 

“Regrettably, yes.” 

“Aw, man,” Kevin groans. “Invite me next time.” 

Nolan sits down beside Kevin on the couch and puts his legs up on the coffee table. “I’ve been talking shit about you at the office so Sam hates you. I can’t let you meet her.” 

“You fucker,” Kev says and pushes Nolan off the couch. Nolan stays on the hardwood floor for a while, stares up at their ceiling. There’s a splotchy yellow stain right above the coffee table, which means the upstairs neighbour’s shower is probably leaking again. 

Kev’s face appears above Nolan. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“Nothing,” Nolan says and then flips over to press his face into the floor. 

Kevin pokes at Nolan’s ass with his foot. “Doesn’t look like nothing to me. C’mon, tell me about your problems. Girl trouble? Did you get swerved last night?” 

“No,” Nolan mumbles. 

“Is it about the Gritty job? Are you quitting? Are you looking for jobs?” Kevin’s voice audibly perks up. “The daycare centre at school is hiring for half-day supervisors, you should apply!” 

“For a _ daycare centre supervisor _?” Nolan tries to impart as much disdain as his body can physically manage into his words. He flips back over and sits up and gives Kev the look he learned from Sam: the I Wouldn’t Fuck You Even If We Were The Last Two People On Earth And The Survival of Humanity Depended On It look. 

Kevin winces. “Yeah, maybe not. Are you looking for jobs though?” 

“No,” Nolan sighs. “I like my job.” 

“Really,” Kev says, skeptical. “You’re always complaining about it.” 

“Everyone complains about their job,” Nolan says. 

“So, what’s the problem, man?” Kev slides down the couch to sit cross-legged beside Nolan. “Not girl troubles, not work troubles.” 

Nolan sighs again, feels like all he’s been doing for the past three years of his life is sigh, and mumbles, “Got a crush.” Which—he hates that, a _ crush_, it makes him feel like he’s back in middle school, blushing and stammering and not knowing what to do with his hands whenever Oliver C. from history class talked to him. 

“What!” Kev yelps. “Who? _ Sam_?” 

“No,” Nolan shouts. “What the fuck, fuck you.” 

“You don’t know anyone else in this city, what was I supposed to think?” Kev says. “Is it a fan? Did you fall in love with a Gritty fan?” 

“No,” Nolan shouts again, voice pitching just a bit higher than normal. “It’s—it’s not.” 

Kev whines, “Bro, just tell me, you’re killing me here.” 

“It’s Travis Konecny.” 

“Wait—like.” Kev stares at him, his eyes doing the thing where they bulge out really freakily. Nolan keeps his eyes forward. “Travis Konecny, like number 11 for the Philadelphia Flyers, like the dude we watch on our TV screen, that Travis Konecny?” 

“How many fuckin’ Travis Konecnys do you know?” 

“Okay, Jesus, chill,” Kev says, and then, “Do I get to meet him?” 

Nolan hesitates. Asks, “do you want to meet him?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Kevin says. “Obviously.” 

Nolan picks up his phone and stares at his text message thread with Travis from earlier in the day. Travis has apparently showered and then drank his weight in Gatorade, if his newer texts are anything to go by. He’s probably not doing anything right now. Unless—he is. Unless maybe he’s doing team shit with like, his teammates. Maybe he’s sick of Nolan, maybe he’s still hungover, maybe he doesn’t know how to drive in the snow. Fuck it, Nolan thinks. 

**to unknown ****  
** are you busy 

Travis replies back almost immediately. 

**from unknown ****  
** never busy if its u 

What the fuck is Nolan supposed to do about that. That’s a joke, yeah? Yeah, that’s definitely a joke. He can’t fucking stand Travis sometimes. 

**to unknown ****  
** fuck you  
come over  
my roommate is making dinner 

To Kevin, he says, “You’re making dinner.” 

“Fuck you,” Kevin says and gets up to see what he has left in the fridge to make dinner with. 

**from unknown ** **  
** oh sick  
fuck yeah  
is this the clorox roommate 

**to unknown ** **  
** yeah yeah  
kevs a real charmer 

**from unknown ** **  
**must be if your grumpy ass is living with him 

“Hey!” Nolan calls into the kitchen. “Do you think I’m grumpy?” 

“No, you’re the happiest guy I know,” Kevin says. “Where’d you put the chicken stock?” 

“I fuckin’ drank it,” Nolan intones. “How would I know where you put your damn chicken stock?” 

Kevin sighs and starts opening all the cupboards in the kitchen. “Yep, happiest guy I know.” 

When Travis knocks at the door forty-five minutes later, the fire alarm in their apartment starts going off. 

Nolan flings open the door. “Hi,” he says as the fire alarm blares from behind him. Kevin shrieks something incoherent at it. Nolan smiles, brittle. 

“Uhhh,” Travis says. He stands on his tiptoes to peer over Nolan’s shoulder, the snow on his hair still melting. “Is this a bad time?” 

“Nah,” he says and waves Travis in. “It’s always like that here. That’s just Kev.” 

There’s a series of banging noises from the kitchen and then the sound of the balcony door opening. The freezing Philly winter air blows into the apartment; Nolan sneezes. 

“Kinda seems like a bad time,” Travis says when Kevin lets out an extremely creative manipulation of English expletives. 

“Hi, Travis!” Kevin yells from the kitchen, hearing Travis walk into the apartment. 

“Hi, Clorox Roommate!” Travis yells back. 

Kevin appears by the kitchen doorway wearing an apron with Tom Brady’s face surrounded by cartoon pink foam hearts around it. He’s frowning. He puts his hands on his hips, right above Tom Brady’s ears. “Patty,” he says, sounding real sad and disappointed in Nolan. “You can’t go around telling Travis Konecny the Clorox story.” 

“Sorry, man,” Nolan says, not sorry about it at all. “I told Sam and Sam can’t keep a secret. Anyway, Kev this is—well, you already know. Trav, this is Kev, my roommate.” 

“Hey, man,” Travis says, frowning slightly. “Nice to meet you.” He glances at Nolan out of the corner of his eye. “Did he just call you Patty?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Nolan says, “most folks call me Patty.” 

“Is that—” Travis squints his eyes at Nolan. “Wait—wait, is that your _ last name_?” 

“Yeah,” he says, confused. “Patrick. Nolan Patrick. That’s me.” 

“Oh, shit!” Travis exclaims, covering his mouth with his one hand and staring uncomprehendingly at Nolan. “I thought Sam was joking!” 

Nolan raises an eyebrow. “Sam was joking about what?” 

Travis starts laughing, almost doubles over, has to grab onto Nolan’s arm to keep himself upright. “D’you remember when Andrea slipped up and called the guy inside the Gritty suit _ Pats_? And I had thought the dude’s name was like, Patrick or something, like his first name was Patrick and everyone called him Pats for short, and when I asked—” 

“Oh my God,” Kevin says, understanding dawning on him. “Pats, holy shit, you fucking idiot. _ You didn’t tell Travis Konecny that you’re Gritty_?” Kev demands, disbelief colouring every letter. “Are you fucking with me right now?” 

“I—” Nolan looks around for support and finds none. “I thought you knew! Have you ever seen me and Gritty in the same room together? Maybe if you just thought about it—” 

Travis has to sit down on the ground to get himself together, he’s laughing so hard. “This is the best day of my life,” he gasps. “Pats—can I call you that?—Patty, I can’t believe you’re a Philly legend. You’re the most famous person I know.” 

“I’m not famous,” Nolan says irritability and crosses his arms over his chest. “Gritty’s famous.” 

Travis looks up at Nolan, stops laughing for a second. Nolan scowls back down at him and Travis just starts wheezing again. “How’d you even get that job?” he asks when he’s finally calmed down a bit. 

“I don’t know,” he says sourly, his ego more bruised than he’ll admit by Travis laughing in his face for ten full minutes. “I just applied for it.” 

“God, you’re such a grump,” Travis says and pulls on a strand of Nolan’s hair. 

“Sometimes I put _ Marley and Me _on TV to liven the mood around here,” Kevin says unnecessarily. Travis loses it at that, almost goes into cardiac arrest just sitting on the floor. 

“I hate you,” Nolan says to Kevin. “I’m never inviting anyone over again.” 

“You’re invited back whenever,” Kevin assures Travis, completely ignoring Nolan, and heads back into the kitchen to check on dinner. 

Nolan sighs deeply and sits down on the floor beside Travis. “I hate this,” he tells him. He doesn’t deserve this. Travis buries his face into Nolan’s arm; he’s not even making any noise anymore—just silent shaking laughter. 

**__________**

“Did you know?” is the first thing Nolan asks Sam when he gets to work on Monday. 

“Did I know what?”

“That Travis didn’t know Gritty and I were the same person?” 

Sam blinks at him a couple of times. “Oh my God,” she finally says, “did he find out?” 

“So you knew.” 

“Of course I _ knew_,” Sam scoffs. “Do you know how many questions that asshole asks about you when you’re not around? If he knew you were Gritty, I would’ve gotten so many questions about it. _ So many_. So? Did he find out?” 

Nolan huffs, “Yeah.” 

“And he’s still friends with you?” 

“Shut up,” Nolan says, and then, “I don’t know,” just as the elevator dings and Travis walks out carrying a box of doughnuts and a tray of coffee. 

“Coffee delivery!” he calls into the office and there’s a commotion as everyone frantically rushes to Travis. He meets Nolan’s eyes across the coffee, waves the box of doughnuts at him. One pant leg is tucked into his sock. There’s a beaver on his hat today and the perpetual cut on his chin from a shaving injury. 

“You don’t know, huh?” Sam says skeptically, chewing on the lid of her pen. “Think he wants more than just friends, Pats.” 

“He _ doesn’t_,” Nolan insists. “Why would—it’s not—he’s _ Travis Konecny_,” he stresses. 

“Yeah, and Travis Konecny is a fuckin’ loser,” Sam says, rolling her eyes. “He’s here literally three days a week. Who do you think he’s here to see? _ Zack_?” 

“Hey,” Zack says, passing by with a stack of doughnuts in one hand. He frowns at them unhappily. “Maybe he’s here to see me, how do you know he’s not?” 

“Trust me,” Sam says, “the only person Travis Konecny has eyes for is our resident fur baby monster sulking over here.” 

Zack narrows his eyes at Nolan. “He does have nice skin, I suppose I can see why Travis might want to hit that,” Zack admits and Nolan resists the urge to commit workplace violence and then it’s too late anyway because Travis appears behind Zack asking if they were talking about office gossip and if so, could he join? He places a latte in front of Nolan, with soy milk and no vanilla syrup, the exact way Nolan orders it when he feels like he’s had a rough day, and Nolan didn’t even realise Travis had been listening when he complained about how the vanilla syrup always tasted weird and how whenever he asked for lactose-free milk, he always got the regular kind anyway, so he’s just started asking for other dairy alternatives. Travis sits on the chair that he’s claimed for himself, hands Patty a doughnut, and starts in on some inane story about Coots’ girl troubles. 

Sam raises both eyebrows at Nolan and pulls a face that says _ is he buying complicated coffee orders for Zack? Don’t think so, bud_, but—

It’s not that simple, he thinks. 

He remembers those two awful years of college, turning his life upside down when the migraines came and went and then came again and they couldn’t find anything that worked, and one morning he had woken up and suddenly realized that everyone around him had left. That the world had continued spinning, kept moving, without him, and he was still stuck in limbo, in this liminal space, in the doorway between sick and healthy, swallowing down three, four, five pills a day. And, yeah, Kevin had stayed and Nico tried as best as he could, but Nolan knows something about getting left behind. He thinks about Travis Konecny, first and last name, famous NHL player, who spends half the days of a year in different cities across the country playing a sport he’s always dreamed of playing in front of thousands of people. Nolan likes that Travis Konecny, but he’s also one of thousands of people to do so. He remembers the girl at the bar from the other night, can conjure up the faces of dozens of girls at other bars from other nights, and he thinks: _ I’ve been burned before. _He knows when to not get his hopes up, knows who he is and knows who Travis is, so he doesn’t even bother rolling his eyes at Sam, just turns back to Travis and does his best to stop wanting. 

Travis winks at him when he catches Nolan watching him. 

Nolan just likes him so much. 

**__________**

The Flyers get murdered on home ice the next Saturday. The Jets score two in the first three minutes and it doesn’t get any better from there. The powerplay lets in two short-handed goals and they get booed off the ice after the final buzzer. From the other side of the rink, Nolan sees Travis angrily slam his stick into the boards, breaking it in two, anger rolling off of him in waves. 

Nolan gets popcorn dumped on him and someone else spills their can of beer all over the Gritty fursuit, and he has to spend thirty minutes scrubbing at the stain before it looks like he could blend in well enough with the collection of other miscellaneous stains on the fursuit. By the time he’s walking out of the Farg towards the employee parking lot in the back, his hands reek of vinegar and he’s hungry enough he hopes that Kev hasn’t finished their shitty Chinese take-out leftovers from last night. 

When he gets to where he parked his car, fumbling with the keys in his pockets, Travis is leaning already there leaning against the hood, hands shoved into his pockets. 

“You need a ride or something?” Nolan asks. 

Travis shrugs, crosses his arms over his chest protectively. “Didn’t wanna go home by myself. Can I come over?” 

“‘Course, man,” Nolan says. He unlocks the car and waves at Travis to get into the passenger seat. He passes Travis the aux cord and turns up the heat. The car is silent, just the sound of tires grinding onto the road underneath them. When he glances at Travis from the corner of his eyes, he’s got his shoulders almost pulled up to his ears and hunched in on himself; he’s sitting so still it’s almost unnerving. By the time they get on the I-95, rain starts to pour down, the headlights of the car making little halos of light around each raindrop. 

Nolan hears Travis shift in his seat and let out a sigh. “We’re not gonna make playoffs,” he says into the quiet of the car. 

Nolan passes the exit he usually takes to get back to his apartment, keeps his foot on the gas pedal and his eyes forward. “It’s only December,” he says. 

“Nothing’s fucking going right,” Travis spits out, his entire body strung tight with tension. “I can’t—can’t score a goal on my life, can’t make a pass, can’t—do anything.” 

“You’re going to score one,” Nolan says quietly. “It’s just—bad luck, man. You hit the post twice tonight.” 

“Fuck,” Travis says. He digs his elbows into his knees and presses the heel of his hands his eyes. “_Fuck_. I thought making it pro was supposed to be fun.” 

Nolan pulls the car onto a side street, follows a gravel road until they hit a dead end, and turns off the engine. Travis’ country music cuts off; it’s just the two of them in the car, listening to the sound of rain pounding down on the roof Nolan’s shitty Toyota, Travis’ leg bouncing up and down and bumping into the glove box every time. 

“Is it not fun?” Nolan asks carefully. 

“No, it is,” Travis sighs, “I didn’t mean that. I know—I know I’m like, lucky or whatever to be here but. God, I just want. I just want to—win games. Do good. Make Philly proud of me.” 

Nolan feels his chest go tight, feels something squeeze around his heart and put it into a chokehold; he suddenly remembers sitting on the couch of the university’s guidance counsellor’s office with his hand clenched around the ball of yarn she always gave to him so he’d have something to do with his hands and listening to her talk about _ being gentle with your body _ and _ not letting other people suffocate you with their expectations _ and _ being good and doing good for yourself and nobody else. _“You don’t need to be scoring goals to be doing good, Teeks,” he says to Travis now. “You’ve been doing good. You’re always doing good.” 

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Travis snaps, sharp and bitter and acidic on his tongue. 

Nolan reaches over and wraps a hand over Travis’ clasped ones and carefully doesn’t look at him. He hears Travis’ leg stop bouncing and then a shaky inhale. “Fuck Philadelphia,” Nolan says, “they don’t get to keep you.” 

“What? Pats, what are you talking—” 

“No,” he says, “Philly doesn’t keep you and the Flyers don’t get to keep you and you don’t need to be scoring goals or winning games or whatever to feel like you’re doing good. Fuck making this city proud. This city hates everyone anyway. Fuck all that bullshit.” He finally turns to look Travis in the eye, fiercely protective of this version of Travis sitting in his car right now. 

Travis doesn’t say anything. 

“Teeks, I’m serious,” Nolan says. “Fuck that, yeah?” 

He huffs noisily. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, Pats.” 

“Good.” Nolan sits back to lean against the headrest, head still turned towards Travis. “You just care so much, man. I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.” 

A beat of silence passes through, heavy and poignant for reasons Nolan can’t explain. Here, in the stillness of his car and under the cover of the rain and the night that wraps a cloak around them tightly enough that Nolan can’t imagine the world existing beyond the four doors of this car—here, there isn’t a single part of Travis doesn’t want, and he lets himself be selfish and greedy for just this one moment. 

Travis says, “Who gets to keep me then?” 

Nolan shrugs. “Whoever you want, I guess.” 

“Just not the Flyers.” 

“Just not the Flyers,” Nolan agrees. “Keep yourself. Get a dog, the dog can keep you. Andrea already wants to adopt you. Sam. Kevin. Me. All of us.” 

“You?” 

Nolan doesn’t say anything, just nods once, and watches Travis look down, almost bashful, and bite down on a smile. Nolan can’t deal with that shit, so he jams his key back into the ignition and drives them home. 

**__________**

At some point, Travis Konecny the Famous NHL Player had turned into Travis had turned into Trav had turned into Teeks, and Nolan had started expecting to see Travis already at his desk when he came into the office. 

Just to reiterate for maybe the millionth time, Nolan likes his job. Gritty is scary, but fun. Nolan can’t afford a therapist right now, but he can get into the Gritty fursuit and act out all of his intrusive thoughts for four to five hours every couple of nights and have people _ cheer _him on for it. He likes his co-workers a lot, which he thinks is more than many people can say. Even checking the official Gritty email is occasionally entertaining. 

(Allison had sent a PDF attachment of the rough draft of her article and Nolan had loved it so much that he printed out the concluding paragraph where Allison talks about a better future with 4-day work weeks and the prioritization of fundamental workers’ rights. He pinned it up to the wall beside his and Sam’s shared desk so every time Zack gets mad at the lack of productivity in the office and calls them “broken cogs in the machine,” Nolan gazes longingly at Allison’s utopian future.) 

Still, every time he gets into the office in the morning or after lunch and sees Travis’ stupid face asking around for a pink highlighter so he can colour all of Sam’s meeting notes, he feels a jolt in his chest—as if somewhere deep inside of him, he’s hoping that Travis likes him as much as he likes Travis and that every time Travis shows up to this place where he knows Nolan’s going to be, it feels like physical proof that Nolan is good enough and worthy enough and interesting enough to keep not just Travis, but also Travis Konecny the Famous NHL Player, around. 

It’s not that there are different versions of Travis that Nolan does and doesn’t like, but. The Travis in private that steals pens off of Nolan’s desk and printer paper off of Zack’s to make shitty cartoons about everyone in the office—that’s the Travis Nolan would probably die for, not the Travis Konecny the Famous NHL Player that everyone else also knows. He likes how Travis never pretends to be something he’s not, like he’s anything other than a rural Ontario hick, with his cargo pants and the patchy shave job on his face, the peeling calluses on his palm that Nolan knows is from handling a hunting rifle and then from a fishing rod and then a hockey stick. He likes how unpolished Travis is, not a single part of him sandpapered down, every sharp edge of him digging into Nolan’s ribs when he gets too close. He likes how it’s so obvious Travis has lived his entire life with a chip the size of Texas on his shoulder. Thinks maybe Travis has always carried himself like a hand grenade ready to blow at any moment. 

He likes the Travis who still goes around telling his co-workers that he’s the proud defending champion of the Flyers’ Media Communication Department Paper Airplane Tournament, who cried actual literal tears when Zack had accidentally knocked down and broken the frame they had put Rat Bastard into. The Travis that Nolan learns about in bits and pieces: that’s the one he wants to hoard for himself like something precious, wants to keep to himself. Like: here’s a part of Travis Konecny that nobody else gets to know but Nolan _ does _ and he gets to _ keep _ knowing him. That’s maybe the best part of all of this, that Travis keeps coming back to the office for no good reason at all. Sometimes he rushes into the office, panting like he just ran up the four flights up stairs, and says that he’s got the biggest fucking news ever, and tells a long-winded and convoluted story that just ends up with Giroux making a fool of a himself and a really blurry photo that Travis got of Giroux falling down the stairs or something. Other times, he just sits at Sam and Nolan’s desk to pass on team gossip to the delight of both Nolan and Sam who are practically desiccating from the lack of drama in their lives. Once, Sam spends three hours ranting about her “old bitch of a landlord” and Travis actually _ listens _to her the entire time, making well-timed “oh, that’s fucked up” and “yeah, I would’ve just like, committed to spending the rest of my life in prison” comments. When the Flyers have a morning skate, Travis comes up the elevator with a dozen cups of coffee and assorted breakfast foods, effectively earning the allegiance and loyalty of the Flyers’ entire media communications department. 

Sarah had extended an invitation to the annual office Christmas to him even though he _ doesn’t actually work here. _When Travis has to like, actually go to work and do his actual job and go play hockey, Nolan can hear everyone in the office sigh disappointedly when 9:00 A.M. comes and goes and Travis doesn’t walk out of the elevator with a delivery of coffee. Once, when all of them had been working late to get a video out the next morning, Sarah had put the Flyers game on and when some asshole fourth-liner on the Capitals had checked Travis into the boards, the entire floor erupted in loud, angry, disapproving shouts. “WHERE’S THE FUCKING CALL, REF?” Zack had shouted at the television screen, a surefire way of getting the ref to make the call. 

It gets to a point where the office feels too quiet, too empty and the silence too pressing, when the Flyers have a road trip and Travis doesn’t show up for a week. Travis just—talks so much and takes up so much space, even when he’s not trying to. During one of Nolan’s first days on the job, Andrea had joked that she’s never heard Travis shut up once in her entire tenure with the team. At the time, Nolan had just laughed politely and promptly went back to memorizing the names of the players and their jersey numbers so he didn’t make an ass of himself and was too busy to understand what was likely a well-intentioned warning against making conversation with Travis. It’s like Travis’ mouth is working at twice the speed as the rest of his body, in a completely different timezone, and doesn’t have working brakes. (Travis also likes to flick his tongue out in the middle of his sentence when he’s trying to parse out the rest of his thought and it leaves his mouth slick and shiny all the time, but that is altogether a different problem for Nolan to deal with.)

“What’s wrong with you, Nolan?” Andrea asks on Day 4 Without Travis. She places a carrot muffin from the coffee shop downstairs in front of him. “You’re like, bleeding out sadness and you didn’t even need to do the Gritty stuff today.” 

Sam looks up from the photos she’s editing and smirks. “His boyfriend’s gone on a business trip,” she says, making a mediocre approximation of sounding pitying. “Poor Patty.” 

“Shut up.” Nolan scowls and takes a large bite into the muffin to avoid needing to make conversation. He—he doesn’t _miss _Travis. It’s just. His absence is felt dearly, is all. 

Andrea’s eyes light up. “Hey, oh my God, that gives me a video idea—” 

“_No_,” Nolan says emphatically, spitting muffin crumbs everywhere. 

“Okay, God,” Andrea says. “I was just going to suggest something, but since you’re so uptight, I _ guess _I won’t.”

Sam cackles as she stalks off. “Jesus, dude, you need to get laid or something.” 

“I do not.” 

She ignores him and continues, “So much technology available to facilitate having sex with your boyfriend when he’s across the country and you refuse to use _ any _of it. That’s why you’re so pissed off.” 

“Sam—” 

“Don’t you have his number? Just fucking call him, idiot. He’s probably all sad and mopey in his hotel room right now.” She pitches her voice up high in a, quite frankly, disrespectful Travis impression and says, “_Oh no why hasn’t Nolan called him? I miss Nolan so much. Claude, do you think I should call_—” 

Nolan throws the rest of his carrot muffin at Sam and catches her right on the forehead. He looks smugly at her when she makes an angry displeased sound and rushes off to the bathroom to wash off carrot bits off her face. 

“Fuck you!” he calls after her. 

“You’re saying that to the wrong person!” she shouts back and flips him off. 

“Trouble in paradise?” Zack asks when he passes by and Nolan has to reuse the carrot muffin to throw at Zack too. 

When he gets back to his apartment that evening, Kevin is sitting in front of the TV watching some nature documentary. Nolan stares at the screen as a hyena tries to chew itself out of the rock it’s trapped under. There’s a lot of blood and—oh yep, that’s the bone. 

“Do you like, enjoy watching this?” Nolan asks Kevin, horrified. 

“Not really,” Kevin says as he stares transfixed at the TV. “But the only other option was that show where old people auction off their creepy dolls and shit.” 

Okay, fair. 

“How was work?” Kev asks. 

Nolan heaves himself onto the couch, leaning his head back against the back. “Boring as shit.” 

Kevin snickers. “No Travis Konecny to brighten up your life, huh?” 

“Please,” Nolan begs, “shut up.” 

His phone starts ringing just as Kevin opens his mouth to continue making fun of him. He pulls it out of his pocket and stares at the UNKNOWN NUMBER flashing up at him. That—that could be anyone, but Nolan hasn’t saved Travis’ number into his contacts yet and that’s definitely the Philly area code and—

Kevin grabs the phone from him and slides to answer. “‘Ello,” he says into the phone with a disgusting Masshole accent. Whoever’s on the other line says something and Kevin’s eyes widen comically. “Oh _ shit_, TK? Pats doesn’t even have your number saved, what the fu—” 

Nolan stands up abruptly, roughly taking the phone away from Kevin and glaring at his smug face. “Hi,” he grits into the phone. “Sorry, Kev is the worst fuckin’ person in the world.” 

“He’s not even in your contacts!” Kev yells after him as Nolan retreats to his room. 

“You haven’t saved my number?” Travis asks amused, from halfway across the country, his voice tinny and small. 

“I—just haven’t had time,” Nolan says lamely because he doesn’t want to say _ if I saved your number, all of this would’ve felt too real and too fast. _

“You can just say you hate me, Pats,” Travis says. 

“Fine, I hate you.” 

“Jesus, you’re such a fuckin’ asshole.” 

“What!” Nolan sputters. “You _ told _me to say—” 

“Yeah,” Travis says, “it was a test and you totally failed it.” 

Nolan rolls his eyes even though Travis can’t see him, but he likes to think that Travis knows him enough by now that he can imagine Nolan doing it. “Why are you calling, man? LA isn’t entertaining enough for you?” 

“What? I can’t just call my good friend to ask how he’s doing?” 

“Fuck off,” Nolan says, “you never call.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s because I’m _ not even saved in your contacts_.” 

“Am _ I _ saved in _ yours_?” 

“Duh,” Travis says easily. 

“What am I saved as?” 

“Uh,” Travis stutters, “I can’t tell you.” 

“Why the fuck not?” Nolan demands. “Is it something stupid? Is it a dumb Gritty joke?” 

“No, God, it’s not. Anyway, whatever,” Travis says and Nolan snorts at his blatantly obvious attempt to change the topic. “I was supposed to go out with Sanny but he bailed to like, go call his girlfriend or something. And I’m bored. LA is boring as fuck, it’s just palm trees and ugly gentrified buildings and like, smog. So I called you.” 

“Wow,” Nolan says flatly, “nice to know where I rank, I guess. After Sanny and palm trees.” 

“Can’t you be more supportive,” Travis complains. “I didn’t _ just _call because I was bored.” 

“Sure.” 

“I _ didn’t_,” Travis insists. “I was also gonna tell you that you gotta go to that coffee place in Roxborough. They’re having a doughnut sale tomorrow. Buy a box for the office. I think it’s called Taylor’s? Like, you know where that park is?” 

Nolan pinches the bridge of his nose. “You want me to drive up to fuckin’ Roxborough on my work tomorrow? That’s _ literally _the opposite direction.” 

Travis says, “Do you want cheap doughnuts or not?” 

“Wait—” Nolan thinks for a while. “Is that where you get coffee and stuff for the office? Do you drive all the way up north before morning practice?” 

“Uh,” Travis sniffs, “of course not.” 

“Dude, I don’t even like my coworkers that much.” 

“Pats, c’mon, just go buy the stupid doughnuts tomorrow. They’re like, 50% off. I know you want to, you’re a sucker for 50% sales. Tell Sam she owes me.” 

He can’t believe Travis drives an extra twenty minutes to buy coffee for his stupid co-workers. That’s—God, that’s too much for Nolan’s tiny emotionally repressed brain to handle. “Okay, I’ll go buy doughnuts for my idiot coworkers. I think you owe Sam, though. For that time you called her girlfriend a badger.” 

“Okay, fair,” Travis says. From across the country, Nolan hears him plop onto his bed, the springs creaking underneath him. He sighs. “Fuckin’ Sanny. I was kinda looking forward to getting drunk as shit.” 

“Just drink those tiny vodka bottles in the fridge,” Nolan suggests. 

“That’s so depressing, though,” Travis whines. “And also I wanted to get my dick wet. Can’t do that with tiny vodka bottles.” 

“Get on Tinder, man. You’re an NHL player, you could bag any girl.” 

Travis lets out a laugh, but it sounds stilted and awkward. “Yeah,” he coughs, and then says, drily, “not a girl I wanna bag, Pats.” 

A buzzing static starts in Nolan’s ear. He swallows. “Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

Nolan’s brain starts working overtime. It's maybe overheating, the gears turning faster. He can’t make his mouth form words. He thinks about what Travis is doing right now: he’s probably in his hotel room, maybe he’s lying on the bed with his shirt off but the stupid hat still on and that gaudy chain necklace around his neck, keyed-up. 

Nolan sits down on his bed and he’s already half-hard. Christ, Sam was right, he does need to get laid. 

“Are you gonna say anything?” Travis says and his voice sounds more faraway than it should, softer. 

Does Travis hook up in Philly? Probably, right? He’s a hot, rich, twenty-something professional athlete—of course there’s a line-up for _ that_. He tries to picture the guys Travis goes for: other athletes, maybe, or blond twinks with stick-and-poke tattoos of plants and crystals on their forearms, or maybe guys bigger than him who could pick him up like it’s nothing, guys with beards, guys who wear jeans so tight they’re practically painted on. 

This is such a bad fucking idea, he thinks, but he’s already made up of his mind. 

“Where are you right now?” he hears himself asking. His mouth is dry. 

There’s a beat of silence from the other side. Nolan can hear Travis breathing, a steady stream of inhales and exhales. “Hotel,” Travis finally says. 

“Just you?” 

“Yeah,” Travis says slowly, “Sanny went down to the lobby.” 

“You piss him off too much or something?” 

“Shut up,” Travis says, “He said he wanted _ privacy. _Not sure how much privacy he can get down in the lobby, but. I’m not asking questions.” 

“Okay. So, just you?” 

“Just me.” 

Nolan sucks in a breath, counts to five in his mind. “You lying in bed?” he asks. 

“Pats,” Travis says and his voice cracks right down the middle, hoarse, and Nolan hears a rustling in the background, like he’s moving the pillows around on the bed. “What are you doing?” 

“What’s it sound like I’m doing?” Nolan says. 

“Kinda sounds like you’re angling for phone sex.” 

“I guess it does.” 

“Pats.” 

“You don’t have to,” Nolan says; he’s holding his heart in his mouth. “You can just hang up, it’s fine.” 

“Fuck no,” Travis says and there’s the sound of a zipper and more rustling. “Fuck, Pats. Are you serious right now?”

“_Yes_, you asshole,” Nolan snaps, “but I’m gonna change my mind if you keep fucking asking.” 

Travis laughs, all breathy and soft. “Okay, jeez,” and then Nolan hears the _ click _of a lube bottle opening and shutting and Travis’ breaths start getting shorter and ragged. “You naked?” 

“No,” Nolan says, and worms his hand down his pants, presses the heel of his hand against his cock, not all the way hard yet but trying its best to get there. “You sound like such a douchebag.” 

“I’m trying my best,” Travis huffs. “Pats, c’mon, take your pants off. You’re so fuckin’ hot, I can’t even deal with you sometimes.” 

“Fuck,” Nolan swears and yanks his pants. He leans backwards on his bed, bends his knees up, pulls his boxers just enough to get his dick out, leaking pre-come everywhere. He wraps a hand loosely around the base of his cock and just holds it there, not wanting to get even close to coming before Travis. “You spend a lot of time looking at me?” 

“Yeah, you vain dickbag,” Travis pants. “God, do you _ know _what you look like? Fuck, Pats, your mouth is a nightmare.” 

God, he wants Travis’ hands clenched in his hair until it’s almost painful, moving Nolan to where he wants him, and fucking into his mouth. He bets Travis likes it rough—Nolan wants Travis to like it rough, wants Travis to press down on his throat and shove his cock down his throat until he’s crying for it, grinding against the bed and begging Travis to let him come. Nolan starts stripping his cock in earnest now, throws his head against the head frame, picturing Travis sitting where he is now with his legs splayed out and Nolan kneeling in front of him, wrapping his lips around Travis’ cock. 

“Sweetheart,” Travis is saying, and Nolan lets out a moan at that and immediately bites down on it. Travis hums, pleased. “You like that? Sweetheart? Are you getting hard?” 

“Yeah,” Nolan grits out, exhaling sharply through this nose. “Can you—_fuck_—” 

“What do you want, Pats? I’ll do it, I’ll do anything, what do you want?” 

“Just—keep talking—” 

“Shit,” Travis groans, “yeah, I can do that. You’re already close? You are so easy for it, man. I bet you just come without me getting my hands on your dick.” 

“I—I could,” Nolan grits out and shuts his eyes, tries to focus on Travis running his mouth on the other end of the lines, bites down down to keep quiet. “Done it before.” 

“Holy fuck,” Travis gasps. “That’s the hottest thing anyone’s said to me. You can just come like that? Patty, Pats, what the fuck. I bet you’re all pink and pretty down there, Pats, aren’t you? Pinks cheeks and pink pussy, pink everywhere.” 

“Shit _ shit shit_,” Nolan curses. He slows down, puts his phone down on the bed, turns on speaker phone and prays to God that Kev has the TV turned up as loud as he usually does. He long-arms the drawer on his nightstand open and pulls out the container of lube he keeps in there, spreads a bunch on his fingers and pulls his leg even further up, reaches down to push one finger in and a whine gets caught in his throat. 

Travis sounds punched-out, heaving. “Pats, if—fuck, I wish I was there. Get three fingers in you and then put my mouth right there too, keep you there on the edge for an hour before I let you come.” 

Nolan lets out a cry, adds another finger. 

“Oh shit, are you fingering yourself now?” 

“_Yeah_,” Nolan says wetly. 

“How many? One? Two?” 

“Two—or no,” Nolan stutters. “Three now.” He adds another finger and that one hurts a bit, but he just shifts his position on the bed and twists his wrist to the left. He hits his prostate, dead centre, and it doesn’t hurt anymore, and he’s at the point where he’s just chasing, chasing his orgasm. He twists again and lets out another moan and Travis swears. He knew that Travis liked to run his mouth, but _ Jesus_, he didn’t know it would be like this; he’s embarrassed almost how much he likes it, how much more he would like if Travis was here with him, pushing him down into the bed with his ass up, taking what he wanted, and his mouth right by Nolan’s ear, hot and panting and filthy. 

“Baby, you’re gonna kill me,” Travis swears and he stumbles over his words like he’s barely hanging on, too. “I wanna fuck you with my tongue, keep your fingers in there, and make you come from that. Jesus, you sound so—good. I’ll make you come and lick it up and then I’ll fuck you, promise I will, fill you up because three fingers isn’t enough, fuck you nice and slow and just drag it out until you’re hard again—could you do that again? God, I bet you could—and then milk another one outta you.” 

Nolan listens greedily to the words coming out of Travis’s mouth, moving his fingers up and down quicker now, hitting his prostate every time. 

“Are you—are you close?” Nolan mutters, so out of it that he’s barely registering anything besides his dick pulsing in his hand and Travis on the phone. 

“Yeah, baby,” Travis pants, “like, three more strokes and I’ll be there. Think you can come for me now? C’mon, sweetheart, lemme hear you,” and Nolan sobs and comes with a choked-out whine. He blacks out for a while, leaning against his headboard and breathing heavily. He listens to Travis try to continue talking, all that filthy shit and then some soft and sweet stuff interspersed between, and then he stops suddenly and it’s just the wet sounds of him stripping his cock, Travis’ harsh panting. “Pats,” he gasps, “say something, please. _ Fuck_, I’m close—” 

“Trav, Jesus, you drive me fuckin’ crazy. I wanna get my mouth on your cock, just suck you down and you—like, do whatever—” 

“Swallow for me?” Travis says and Nolan can hear the smirk in his voice. Thinks that if Travis has time to be a piece of shit, Nolan’s probably not doing his job well enough. 

“Yeah, if that’s what you want,” Nolan says. “Keep it in my mouth for a while, I guess, let you taste yourself afterwards—” 

“_Christ_,” Travis lets out a punched-out sound and comes, making high-pitched gasps the entire time. “Christ,” he repeats when he comes down from it. “Pats, you crazy motherfucker.” 

“Hey,” Nolan protests, “you seemed pretty into it.” 

“I was, yeah,” Travis agrees. “I’m so sticky now.” 

“Me too, bud.” 

“Gonna go shower,” Travis mumbles and makes no move to get up to shower. “Maybe a little later.” 

Nolan snorts. “You’re gonna fall asleep, dumbass. Go shower now.” 

“No,” Travis says. “I’m sleepy. Think I’m gonna take a little nap before Sanny comes up. Pats, God, I didn’t know—didn’t know you were—if I’d known—” and he trails off and before Nolan can ask _ if you’d known, then what? _ he hears Travis snoring gently from the other side of the line.

Nolan sighs and says to Travis, “Can’t believe I’m this into you, you asshole,” even though he’s asleep and dead to the world and halfway across the country living a life so different and far away from Nolan’s, he doesn’t even want to think about it. 

**__________**

Nolan wakes up twenty minutes earlier than he does normally so he can haul his ass up north to Roxborough. The lady behind the counter squints at him when he walks in and orders a dozen doughnuts and coffees. 

“Do you work with Travis?” she demands. 

“Uh,” Nolan says, caught off-caught. “Kind of.” 

“Oh, okay,” the lady says and relaxes. “He just comes in all the time to order the same thing. Where is he? Is he sick?” 

“No, um. He’s on a… business trip?” 

“Huh,” she says. She hands over the tray of coffees. “He didn’t strike me as a business kinda person.” 

Nolan smiles at that. “Yeah, me neither,” he agrees. “Have a good day.” 

She grins back at him. “You too. Tell Travis I say hi!” 

When he gets to the office, he’s swarmed by a mob of caffeine-rabid people and everyone is 150% nicer to him that day. Which is pretty nice. Not that he’s going to tell Travis that or anything. He doesn’t need Travis knowing his ideas are good ones. 

“You look happy,” Sam says to him suspiciously when they’re on their lunch break. “You haven’t said anything mean to Zack all day.” 

“What?” Nolan asks, chewing around a turkey sandwich. “I can’t be happy?” 

Sam narrows her eyes at him. “Whatever. I don’t like the look on your face.” 

Nolan smiles smugly and continues eating his turkey sandwich, ignoring Sam’s distrustful glares. 

**__________**

The Flyers get back to Philly that next Saturday and have to play a back-to-back against the Penguins that night. Travis hasn’t called again after that phone sex call, but they’ve texted back and forth about stupid shit. Travis sends him photos of palm trees followed by three yawning emojis. Patty saves Travis’ name as Rat Bastard in his phone and forwards the best emails he gets, including another article from Allison, this time about the eradication of indigenous cultures in the Midwest. They don’t talk about the sex or about Travis calling Nolan _ baby _ and _ sweetheart _or how Travis had fallen asleep with Nolan on the phone and didn’t hang up until he woke up in the morning eight hours later. 

It’s not that Nolan _ wants _to talk about it—God forbid he actually talk about his feelings for once—but he’ll get a text from Travis sometimes and feel his stomach drop. He thinks maybe he’s way too deep into this. That maybe he likes Travis too much. Like, in the romantic kind of way and also wouldn’t-mind-fucking-him kind of way, but mainly he just wants to be with Travis, to have Travis sit beside him at the bar and nobody else, to spend his weekends and holidays fucking around in the apartment he shares with Kev or in Travis,’ to get all the parts of Travis that he won’t give to anyone else. Nolan’s so bad at sharing, and he hates it, hates that about himself, but he can’t fucking help that he doesn’t want all the inane things about Travis that Nolan has tucked safely into his pockets to be shared with some other guy, some athlete, some random dude from a small town in Ontario who also only wears camo and only drinks dark beers. 

Anyway, what was he saying? Right, he’s fine. Everything’s fine. 

An hour before the game against the Penguins, when he and Sam are in the supply closet trying to get another beer stain off the Gritty fursuit, he gets a text from Travis. Sam raises an eyebrow knowingly and gestures for him to text back while she scrubs furiously at the stain with a Tide to Go pen. 

**from rat bastard ****  
** any requests? 

Nolan frowns. 

**to rat bastard ****  
** what, like song requests?  
are you even in charge of that 

**from rat bastard ****  
** youre so stupid  
game requests 

**to rat bastard ****  
** lol  
yeah fight malkin  
that lanky asshole  
give the people what they want 

Travis doesn’t reply back, so Nolan just assumes he’s doing whatever he usually does on game days. Annoying Giroux, probably. 

“What’d Travis say?” Sam asks. She hands back the Gritty fursuit, all new and spanking clean. 

“How do you even know that Travis?” Nolan grumbles. 

Sam snickers. “You only text three people. I’m here with you, so it can’t be me. You said Kev was on a date tonight, so it couldn’t be him either. So—obviously, Travis.” 

“I fuckin’ hate you,” Nolan says and stumbles into the Gritty fursuit. He pulls up the zipper and turns around to get Sam to pull up the back zipper too. “I told him to fight Malkin.” 

“Jesus, are you trying to get him killed?” 

“He’s not gonna fight Malkin,” Nolan reassures her. His voice comes out muffled from inside the Gritty suit.

“I’m gonna start a betting pool on that fight.” Sam pats him on the back. “Break a leg. Go scare some kids. Or whatever Gritty does. See you on the other side, big guy.” 

“Fuck you,” Nolan says and stomps out into the arena to a resounding cheer. 

Somewhere in the middle of third period, Nolan’s taking a break from taunting people to fight him and standing with Sam in the tunnel by the gate. A kid up on the stand waves at him, grinning real wide, so Nolan walks over and gives him a high-five and signs a puck for the kid. Sam’s on camera duty tonight and she’s furiously adjusting the shutter every couple of photos and cursing out Andrea’s old camera. Nolan glances down at her and tries to tell her Andrea probably won’t even give a shit if she gets the photos or not, but just as he looks away from the rink, a huge cheer goes up in the arena. 

“Holy shit,” Sam says and lowers her camera. 

Travis is—fighting. 

It is objectively not going well for him; Malkin has like, half a foot and twenty pounds on him. But Travis is scrappy, always has been, hungry to prove something about himself, like there was a burning in his stomach that had started on the first day of training camp and it had never left, and now it’s just become part of Travis. His helmet comes off at some point when Malkin gets a long arm wrapped around his neck and his hair goes everywhere, two blotches of angry red high up on his cheeks, his mouth curled up into a sneer as he glares up at Malkin. Malkin, on his part, looks like he stepped into a pile of steaming garbage and now has to take his shoes and his pants to the dry cleaners to get them cleaned off. The ref blows the whistle furiously to stop the fight. Travis shrugs Malkin’s arm off of him and starts skating towards the penalty box before the ref even says anything. He stops in the middle of the ice and looks around the stands, like he’s scanning for—

He spots Nolan—well, Gritty, he guesses—in the tunnel and Nolan can make out his shit-eating grin from across the rink. Travis shakes out his hair and salutes him before continuing on his way to the penalty box. 

“What. What was that,” Sam says. 

Nolan doesn’t even say anything; his brain is on fucking fire. 

“Was that really hot for you?” Sam continues talking. “Because objectively, I thought that was pretty hot.” 

“I can’t talk right now,” Nolan says. 

“Understandable,” Sam replies. 

The Flyers win and Andrea pushes Nolan out onto the ice to entertain the crowd while they announce the stars. Travis gets first star—obviously. 

“Pats!” he shouts across the rink and Nolan has an imploding urge to punch him for doing something as colosally stupid as fighting _Evgeni Malkin _or maybe to kiss him right on the mouth for doing something as colossally stupid as fighting Evgeni Malkin. “Pats, c’mon, pick me up!” he shouts into Gritty’s ear. “I fought that bastard for you. Pats. _Patty_, come _on._” 

So Nolan picks him up and spins him around and the crowd goes fucking insane. It is maybe the most in love Nolan has been with Travis ever since he met him; Travis is grinning down at him, not even looking past the glass to the thousands of Flyers’ fans chanting “T-K, T-K, T-K,” like he only has eyes for Nolan in his stupid Gritty fursuit and nobody else. 

“You stupid fucker,” Nolan says, and Travis probably can’t hear him, but he wraps his legs around Gritty’s waist and bends down and plants a kiss on Gritty’s head all the same. 

Nolan gives him a piggyback off the ice where Travis jumps off and wraps him a hug, practically bouncing up and down. When he finally gets called into the locker room, Nolan feels like he’s floating. At the end of the night, when he gets out of the Gritty suit and is making his way to the employee parking lot, Sam corners him at the end of the hallway. 

“Are you gonna explain yourself?” she hisses as she pulls him into an alcove in the hallway. 

“Ow!” Nolan says, rubbing his arm where Sam’s nails dug in. “I have nothing to explain!” 

“You’re telling me that _ that display _ on the ice was _ nothing_? Did you fuck? Did you and Travis fuck?” 

Nolan doesn’t say anything but he can practically hear blood rushing to his face, the flush crawling up his neck and over his cheeks. 

“Holy shit,” Sam says and covers her mouth with a hand. “You did, didn’t you? You motherfucker.” 

“Not really,” Nolan insists, “it was—it was not—in person.” 

“Oh my God,” Sam says faintly. “Phone sex. You guys had phone sex. I’m gonna pass out. You’re literally dating Travis Konecny. Your day job is pretending to be Gritty and now you’re literally dating Travis Konecny. I’m proud of you, buddy.” 

“We’re not,” Nolan says and adamantly does not sound sad or depressed about it. “We’re not dating. It’s—not like that.” 

Sam rolls her eyes. “Only because you’re too much of a coward to ask him out. You’re so disgustingly into him, Pats. Just ask him out. He’s still friends with you even knowing that you’re basically a commercialized furry. If that’s not true love, I don’t know what it is.” 

“You’re still friends with me!” 

“Yeah, but like, we’re also coworkers. It doesn’t count,” Sam says. “Oh hey, Claude.” 

Nolan whips around and nearly has a heart attack when he sees Philadelphia Flyers’ captain, Claude Giroux standing in front of him wearing compression tights, knee-high socks, Adidas slides, and absolutely nothing else. He looks like he’d rather be chained to a rock and getting his liver eaten out by an eagle than be here in a dingy basement hallway of the Farg. 

“You’re… Gritty?” he asks, pained. 

Nolan nods slowly. He hears Sam smother a snicker from behind him and resists the urge to kill. 

Giroux mutters something under his breath and then says with gritted teeth, “TK wants me to pass on a message.” 

Nolan stares at him. Giroux doesn’t say anything, just blinks slowly a couple of times like Sam’s old cat. “Is—is that the message?” Nolan asks, confused. 

Giroux lets out a deep sigh. “He wants me to tell you he had to get back home because he’s dog-sitting his neighbour’s dog but he wants you to… contact him.” He scratches his bare chest and gives Nolan a stink eye which kind of makes Nolan want to melt into the ground right there. “TK’s a fucking idiot. His brain is just. Completely smooth.” 

“Like a koala,” Nolan supplies uselessly. 

Giroux snorts. “Fucking hell. No wonder TK’s obsessed with you. _ Yes_, like a koala. Text him or something, yeah? I’m too old to be dealing with this shit.” And then he turns and walks away, his slides making flapping sounds against his feet after him. 

“_Like a koala _,” Sam mimics and this time, Nolan actually does smack her. “What a dumbass. You two deserve each other. Just ask him out, Patty. He’s not gonna be waiting for you forever.” 

**__________**

Nolan goes home and makes a plan. He has to bang on Kevin’s door to wake him up and then bribe him with McDonald’s to get him to even get out of bed. 

“This better be good,” he grumbles as Nolan forces him to sit at the kitchen table. He lays down his plan to Kevin which involves cooking dinner and ordering dessert from that place on 13th and Lombard and possibly sucking Travis’ dick on their couch. Possibly Travis staying the night. Maybe they’ll fall in love or something. Who knows. Nolan absolutely is not insinuating anything at all. 

“I just need you to like, give me a recipe for something that I can’t even screw up,” he says to Kevin. 

“Couldn’t this have waited until morning?” Kev groans, rubbing his eyes. “Not that I’m not stoked that you finally got your head out of your ass. But like, I’ve got work in the morning.” 

“Kev, please, c’mon,” Nolan begs, “what if I stay single for the rest of my life and I have to live with you forever?” 

“You are so fuckin’ dramatic,” Kev says, but he stands up and goes to dig around in the kitchen counters for a while. He pulls out a bag of pasta and some jars of pasta sauce and busts out his Tom Brady apron. “Well?” he raises an eyebrow at Nolan and gestures towards the kitchen, so Nolan scrambles out of his seat to join Kevin in front of the kitchen counter. 

“Okay, we’re gonna make pasta,” Kev says. “Literally, just pasta. Easiest thing in the world. Maybe we’ll throw in some chicken, if we have time, but don’t get your hopes up. Konecny’s just gonna have to deal with meatless pasta.” He makes Nolan put on apron and then demonstrates how to hold a knife which is definitely totally unnecessary but Nolan doesn’t stop him. Just in case he needed a refresher, y’know? 

By the time Kevin goes over the dish and then watches Nolan struggle through it until he gets a somewhat presentable plate, it’s three o’clock in the morning and both of them are dead on their feet. 

“Good night, fucker,” Kev says when they finish loading the dishwasher. “I’m gonna sleep over Jimmy’s tomorrow so take your sweet ass time making love to Konecny.” 

“Please don’t say it like that,” Nolan says. “It sounds so much more awful when you say it like that.” 

“Is that _ not _what you’re planning on doing? Yeah,” he says, smug, when Nolan doesn’t reply, just jabs at the dishwasher button with more force than necessary. “That’s what I thought.” 

Before he passes out in bed that night, he picks up his phone, and opens his messages with Travis. The last text was Nolan’s from before the game asking Travis to fight Malkin. He can see Travis’ little read receipt at the bottom, but he figures Travis had to like, take care of the dog or whatever. He hesitates for a bit before sending a text, but the hesitation is mostly just a formality at this point. 

**to rat bastard****  
** hey come over for dinner tmrw  
if ur free

Travis doesn’t respond, so he’s probably asleep or something. 

Nolan plugs his charger into his phone and turns off the light. He lies in bed for a while, staring up into the darkness, and blinking away sleep. He can’t tell how much time passes, but at some point, he flips his pillow over and turns onto his side and sees his clock flashing 6:00 AM. Thank God he doesn’t need to go in for work tomorrow. 

Eventually, he must end up drifting to sleep while staring at his clock because the next thing he knows he’s waking up and squinting into the blinding sunlight because he forgot to close his curtains last night and—

Oh, shit. 

Nolan pushes his covers off and grabs his phone. His phone is telling him it’s four o’clock in the afternoon but that can’t be right because he set his alarm for ten in the morning. Nolan scrubs the sleep out of his eyes, looks at his phone again, but the time doesn’t change. Kevin texted him at seven thirty that morning, barely an hour and a half after he last looked at his clock before he fell asleep last night, as he left for work: _ good luck buddy :) dont sweat it! the pasta can feel ur nervousness. BE CHILL. _ He sends back a couple of heart emojis and goes through the rest of his texts. Claude has somehow got his number because he’s sent Nolan a message that says: _ It’s Claude. Again. Just wanted to let you know that you’re free to contact TK anytime. Just a reminder, in case you thought it wasn’t okay. It’s definitely okay. _ Sam sent a photo of her girlfriend playing the harmonica for their cat on the balcony three hours ago _ at one o’clock in the afternoon. _

Travis has texted back, too. _ again, always free for u. 5pm good? _Nolan groans and buries his head in his pillow and starts calculating the hours backwards in his head. He can shower in ten minutes. Slap on a pair of jeans in thirty seconds. It took them an hour and a half to make that one pasta dish last night, so dinner is going to be a lot more half-assed that Kevin would probably approve of but Nolan’s gotta make do if he wants to get his hands on Travis and convince him to date him. He texts Travis back with a thumbs-up emoji and rushes to the shower. 

He takes the quickest shower of his life, doesn’t even scrub under his armpits, and yanks on a clean pair of underpants and a semi-clean shirt. It smells a little bit funky, but really, what’s new. No big deal. By the time he gets into the kitchen, pulling Kevin’s Tom Brady apron over his head and grabbing haphazardly at the bags of pasta on the top shelf of the cupboards, it’s four-thirty, and Nolan’s contemplating just ordering a pizza when Kevin’s disappointed frowning face floats into his head. Nolan turns on the stove, slams a pot of water onto the burner closest to him and a pan with oil on the burner next to it. 

Somehow, the cooking thing is a lot more daunting without Kevin standing threateningly beside him, shouting when he does something stupid like dumping the pasta in cold water or forgetting to salt the water _ again_. He cannot for the life of him remember if he was supposed to start with the garlic or the onion in the pan, so he just dumps both of them in at once and prays for the best. How hard can this be? It’s just some fuckin’ pasta. Cook the noodles, dump it into the pan, add salt, done. He can do this. 

Travis knocks loudly on the door at 5:04 PM and Nolan clearly cannot do this. He glares menacingly at his pan of—whatever that is and wipes his hands on Tom Brady’s devastating cheekbones and goes to answer the door. 

“Hi,” he scowls at Travis. 

Travis leans back and raises an eyebrow. “Did I come at a bad time?” 

“No,” Nolan says. 

“Is something burning?” Travis asks. 

“No,” Nolan repeats and sighs. “Well, it isn’t anymore. Whatever. Are you coming in or what?” 

Travis steps into the apartment and takes off his shoes. He’s wearing the tightest t-shirt Nolan has seen him wear ever. When he bends down to untie his laces, his biceps flex just a bit and Nolan has to look away quickly before he does something embarrassing like pop a semi over Travis’ _ arms_. He needs to get a grip, Jesus fucking Christ. 

“You tried to cook or something?” Travis asks. He leans backwards on the living room table and peers into the kitchen. 

“No. Well,” Nolan says and scuffs at the floor with his foot, “kind of. It doesn’t matter. You wanna order a pizza or something?” 

Travis shrugs. “I don’t mind. What were you cooking?” 

“Nothing,” Nolan lies. “Pasta,” he says eventually when Travis keeps looking at him expectantly. 

“You burned pasta?” 

“No,” Nolan lies again. “A little bit.” 

Travis laughs. “You’re kind of a mess, buddy,” he says softly and steps right into Nolan’s space. 

“Trying my best,” Nolan says. 

“I know, man,” Travis says, real earnestly. “You try really hard.” 

“Not hard enough, I guess.”

Travis pushes his hand into Nolan’s and grabs onto his fingers. He’s standing so close that Nolan can feel his breaths on his collarbone, can count Travis’ eyelashes if he focuses long enough, could bend down just a bit and fit his mouth over Travis.’ “Fuck that,” Travis says, “you try hard enough for me. And that’s good enough.” 

“You keeping me?” Nolan asks as his mind flashes back to the rainy late night in his shitty car, parked in the dead end of a neighbourhood park. 

“Of course,” Travis says and looks up at Nolan through his eyelashes. The kitchen goes quiet as they watch each other, the weird sizzling sound from the pasta pan dying off and the boiling water coming to a standstill. Nolan lets him himself look, like he never let himself when they were in the office or when Sam was there at the bar or when Kevin was in the kitchen cooking for them. He likes this Travis the most: the one outside the rink with his orange wristband and his hair soft and getting into his eyes and the mismatched novelty socks he wears. Travis fits a hand over Nolan’s cheek, brushes over his cheekbone with a thumb, and Nolan swallows roughly. “Sorry I couldn’t stay last night,” he says. “My neighbour’s on vacation. I had to go home and let their dog out to piss.” 

“It’s okay,” Nolan mumbles. He turns his head a bit so that his mouth is sitting in the palm of Travis’ hand. “Giroux cornered him after the game anyway.” 

“God, did he really? I told him not to.” 

“He texted me too.” 

“For fuck’s sake,” Travis swears. “You tell _ one _guy about a crush you’ve got and suddenly the entire team—” 

Nolan cups Travis’ face, tilts his chin up and bends down to kiss him, tries to keep the kiss as brief and PG-13 as possible, just in case—he’s read this wrong and Travis doesn’t want anything to do with him. Travis freezes up for one horrifying second in which Nolan considers setting himself on fire and jumping into the Delaware, but then he melts under Nolan’s hand and pushes back against him. Nolan hooks a finger through Travis’ belt loop and pulls Travis towards him until he’s flush up against him and he’s decently certain Travis can hear his heart thudding in his chest. Travis deepens the kiss, slides his tongue against Nolan’s bottom lip and Nolan almost passes out right there in his living room. It’s—kind of a lot; Nolan has spent months wanting to die every time Travis flicked his tongue out in the middle of a sentence and his mouth got all wet and shiny. He gets both his hands under Travis’ ass and lifts him up and walks him back so he’s sitting on the dining table and Nolan can push his legs apart and stand between them. The apartment is silent now besides Nolan gasping for air and the slick movement of their mouths sliding together. 

Travis pulls his face, sucks in some air, and presses his forehead against Nolan’s. “You tried to cook for me?” he asks breathlessly. 

“I had a plan,” Nolan whispers back, equally out of breath. He sneaks in for another kiss and then plants one on his nose, just because he’s got Travis sitting on his living room table in front of him and he can. “Was gonna cook you dinner and buy dessert or something. Get you in bed after.” 

“We can still salvage that plan,” Travis smirks and wraps both his legs around Nolan’s waist and Nolan cannot fucking stand him. Like, at all. He covers Travis’ stupid smug smile with his mouth and bites down gently on his bottom this time, just enough that he can feel it, and that earns him a muffled groan. Nolan rucks up his shirt so he can his hands over Travis’ stomach, feels Travis clench under his hands, and laughs gently at the sharp inhale he gets out of Travis when he skirts his fingers across the waistband of his jeans. 

“Hey,” he mumbles into Travis’ mouth. 

“Yeah,” Travis gasps. “What’s up, Patty?” 

Nolan smiles and feels Travis smile against him in return. “Nothing,” he says, “just glad you’re here.” 

“Me too, buddy,” Travis says, and then, “So like, are we gonna make it to your bed or what?” 

**__________**

Travis does, indeed, run his mouth during in-person sex as he does during phone sex. Maybe even more. Like, he’s got the gas on the pedal and he’s going at a hundred miles an hour and he’s never learned how to stop. Travis can’t keep his hands still and when Nolan pushes Travis down onto his bed and gets his pants off, Travis’ hands are already all over him: yanking his shirt off, flicking over a nipple, pushing his hair back so it isn’t falling into his eyes. When he finally gets Travis’ cock in his mouth, he’s so keyed-up that he grinds down once on the bed and he can feel pre-come leaking into his boxers. Travis isn’t doing much better if how his hands tighten in Nolan’s hair is any indication. 

“Baby,” he says, real low and soft, and Nolan didn’t think that could get any more devastating than it did over the phone, but hearing Travis say it when he’s above him, brushing a thumb across his mouth, stretched across Travis’ cock, and gripping into his hair is almost a fucking religious experience. 

He moans around Travis’ dick and sucks down harder. The hand in Nolan’s hair is almost painful and he grips a hand into Travis’ thigh when he starts to fuck into Nolan’s mouth a little bit, like he’s trying not to, but he can’t help it. 

“Pats,” Travis breathes, “look at you, honestly. You’re so fuckin’ pretty, the prettiest thing I’ve seen in my life.” Nolan whimpers a little at that and he hears Travis chuckle above him. “You like that, yeah? Good, because it’s true. Sweethear—oh _ shit_,” he curses when Nolan opens his mouth wider and takes Travis as deep as he can. He can’t fit all of Travis in his mouth, but he’s sure willing to do his best, and Travis doesn’t seem to mind it. 

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he spits out and starts to earnestly fuck into Nolan’s mouth after that. 

**__________**

Nolan loses track of time a little bit after that, just remembers feeling Travis’ cock at the back of his throat once, and then Travis pulling off and fumbling with his pants on the floor for a condom and Nolan laughing at him when he couldn’t find the pockets of his pants. 

“Are you gonna fuckin’ help me or just sit there laughing?” Travis says and glares at Nolan over his shoulder. 

Nolan leans back on his pillows, spreads his legs apart, and hopes that gives Travis enough of an answer. It does; Travis swears and gets the condom on his cock in maybe twenty seconds flat, which is impressive enough that Nolan gives him a thumbs-up and Travis smacks it down. “You’re such a bitch,” he tells Nolan and then bends down to press his tongue against Nolan’s rim. 

“Fuckin’ _ shit_,” the words rip themselves out of Nolan’s mouth and he needs to grip onto the bedsheets to stop his legs from kicking out. Travis hums, all snarky and smug beneath him, and Nolan feels so much affection for this camo-wearing asshole, it’s ridiculous. 

**__________**

“Jesus,” Travis gasps and thrusts into Nolan. Nolan’s face is pressed down into his pillow and he’s sweating into his eyes already. He’s got one hand holding onto the headboard and the other beside him, clenched in Travis’ hand. “You’re so fuckin’ pink everywhere, I can’t believe it.” 

“Can you—” Nolan grits out and then lets out a heavy groan when Travis pounds in again. “Can you _ shut up _ and just fuck me?” 

Travis leans over him and bites down on Nolan’s shoulder, doesn’t say a word but picks up the pace anyway and Nolan can barely keep up; he has no idea what words are coming out of his mouth, probably just _ fuck _ and _ please Trav _ and _ Jesus Christ _and more begging. He barely has enough space to get a hand on his dick and when he tries to shuffle his arm downwards, Travis slaps it away and pins it to his side. 

“Fuck no,” he growls into Nolan’s ear, punctuates it with a sharp, rough thrust. “I wanna see you come like this. Just on my dick, nothing else.”

Nolan’s almost crying at this point; he can feel the prickly sensation of tears forming at the corners of his eyes and he wants to scream. He’s so hard it almost hurts and Travis doesn’t let up. If anything, he presses Nolan even harder down into the bed, folds himself across Nolan’s back so all he can feel is the heat and the warmth from Travis’ chest, and push in again and again, murmuring absolutely filthy shit into Nolan’s ear as he does. 

Nolan’s leaking _ everywhere _ , he’s gonna need to do like, two loads of laundry tomorrow. “Trav,” he gasps. “Please,” he begs, “can I come. Please, _ please_.” 

“Not yet, sweetheart,” Travis says. He licks a stripe across Nolan’s shoulder and then starts pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses on his back. “You think you can take a finger? My cock and another finger?” 

“_Yes_, fuck,” Nolan gasps, “whatever you want. _ Jesus_, whatever—” 

“You are so fuckin’ good to me,” Travis chokes out and Nolan does cry this time when Travis pushes a finger up beside his cock and it hurts like a bitch but Travis licks around his rim again and hushes him. “You can do it, baby, I know you can. You’ve been so good, just give me this and I’ll let you come, I promise.” 

**__________**

“_Shit_,” Nolan curses, and then, “_fucking shit_,” and then he’s coming on Travis’ dick like Travis had asked. He clenches down and he feels Travis cry out from behind him, thrust up a couple more times, and then stop suddenly and wrap his arm around Nolan’s chest. 

His eyes are still suspiciously wet when he comes down from it, he’s absolutely gross and wet sniffly sounds and he’s completely fucked out. He distantly feels Travis mouthing against his collarbone, their hands still wrapped together. There can’t be any blood flow in that hand.

“Pats,” Travis whispers, “you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Nolan chokes out. “Jesus, yeah.” 

Travis wraps a blanket around the both of them, turns Nolan around so that they’re face to face and tucks the blanket underneath Nolan’s entire back side so that the both of them are folded into this blanket burrito. Travis kisses Nolan on the mouth, sweet and gentle and close-mouthed, and then kisses him again on the corner of his mouth and then right by his ear. “That wasn’t too much?” 

Nolan buries his head into Travis’ shoulder. Tries not to feel too ashamed and soft doing it. “No,” he mumbles.

“Okay,” Travis says. He kisses Nolan again, same spot by his ear. “You were so good.” 

“Ugh,” Nolan says, embarrassed.

“No, Pats, seriously,” Travis says. He runs a hand up and down Nolan’s arm underneath the blanket burrito. “You were so good. Best lay of my life. Never seen someone so pretty when they come.” 

“I’m gonna kill you,” Nolan mutters into Travis’ neck.

“Never gonna leave you,” Travis says, unperturbed by Nolan’s death threat, and then, “best thing that’s ever happened to me,” and that makes Nolan want to rip out his hair, makes him want to hide Travis into a suitcase and escape the country with him. Fuck Philly, it doesn’t deserve Travis, it doesn’t deserve any part of him. Give him back to me, he wants to scream right into the Delaware and into the stands at Wells Fargo and right up Broad Street. He doesn’t belong to any of you, he wants to shout at this city, you don’t deserve him. 

He doesn’t say any of this to Travis. Instead, he kisses him back once and tells him that he’s full of shit and falls asleep tucked into Travis in their little blanket burrito. It is objectively very nice. He doesn’t even think about his burned pasta once. 

**__________**

**from kevin ****  
** so like  
congrats on the sex or whatever  
but  
what is this fucking abomination on the stove  
is this supposed to be pasta????  
did i teach you absolutely nothing???  
patty can u fucking respond  
jesus christ 

**__________**

**from sam ****  
** over/under on #of days itd take u to fuck travis was 10.5  
thanks for holding out on the horniness  
you won me like, 10 bucks 

**__________**

**from rat bastard ****  
** im taking u out tmrw night when we get back  
wear smth nice  
NOT that gross tshirt 

**__________**

Nolan spends the next couple of days basically floating on a cloud. It’s horrifying, to say the least. Sarah takes one look at his face when he gets to work on Monday and starts walking in the other direction. Sam keeps smirking at him and Claude Giroux has texted him multiple times—once to say congratulations and the other couple of times to ask about a babysitting schedule, but Nolan thinks maybe he meant to text his actual babysitter instead of him. At least, he hopes; he’s not babysitting for Claude Giroux’s kids. 

Travis leaves on the Western Canada road trip the day after the failed slash successful pasta data. He sends a bunch of crotch shots from the airport, both when he’s hard and when he’s soft, just to fuck with Nolan, and updates him on team gossip so he can update Sam. Nolan jerks off once in the shower that first night when he gets back home from work and then again right before bed when Travis calls him from their hotel in Edmonton. The Flyers fly back into PHL at two o’clock in the afternoon and by five, Travis is calling Nolan and shouting at him to get downstairs, they’re gonna be late for their reservations, and please for the love of God don’t wear that t-shirt _ or _those stupid sneakers. 

Nolan does wear the sneakers because he doesn’t have any other pairs of shoes to wear, he isn’t really sure what Travis was expecting. When he slides into the passenger seat of Travis’ truck, Travis attacks him and plants a kiss on his mouth and then both cheeks and then his nose until Nolan is probably tomato-red and feels like his face on fire. It’s a lot, is what Nolan’s saying. 

“I missed you,” Travis says. “You look good.” 

Nolan blushes. “Shut the fuck up.” 

“You look awful,” Travis corrects. 

“Just fuckin’ drive, man.” 

Travis makes a parallel park somewhere downtown and ushers Nolan down the street into a fancy-looking restaurant on the other side of the street. Nolan didn’t notice it in the truck, but he’s noticing it now, that Travis is still in a suit and his pant legs are little creased, like he was wearing them on the plane and wasn’t paying attention to how he was sitting. 

“Is this—” Nolan frowns at Travis. “Was I supposed to wear a suit?” 

“Nah,” Travis says and grabs Nolan’s hand, real casual, like it’s barely anything. It is “You’re hot enough they probably won’t care.” 

“Dude,” Nolan says. “You need to stop. Saying those things.” 

Travis rolls his eyes. “Pats, you’re fuckin’ ridiculous. You’re gonna be blushing every day for the rest of your life. I love you, you’re so pretty, I could cry, et cetera.” 

Nolan almost chokes on his spit at that but Travis barely gives him enough time to recover before he’s pushing him into the restaurant. 

“Hi,” the waiter says. His name tag reads DAVE. Dave has an undercut and sprawling black tattoos on the back of his neck. He glances at Travis once and then at Nolan and then smiles at Nolan very slowly. Nolan shuffles behind Travis. 

“Reservation for two under Konecny,” Travis says to Dave. He’s still holding Nolan’s hand and he squeezes once and then twice. 

Dave’s eyes flicker to Travis once. “Let me just check that for you,” he sniffs and flips through his reservation book. Travis scowls at Dave’s bent head and Nolan has to hide his grin into Travis’ neck. Dave shuts the leather-bound reservation book with a snap. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “It doesn’t look like we have you reserved for tonight. We do have a reservation for one person, though? If one of you would like it?” 

“Hold up,” Travis snaps. “I literally called you guys last night and I said, _ hello my name is Travis Konecny and I really need a table because there’s this dude I’m trying to impress and he’s literally perfect _ and the person on the other line—I think her name was Mandy?—she was all like, _ oh yeah we’ve got a table for two, how’s that _and then I said—” 

“Sir,” Dave interrupts. “I can’t help you. You’re not in the books. There’s nothing I can do. Again, we do still have a one-person table available.” He makes intense eye contact with Nolan and raises an eyebrow. 

“Let’s just go,” Nolan mutters into Travis’ ear and pulls on his shirt. “He’s giving me the creeps.” 

Travis huffs and looks very close to starting a fight in the middle of this very fancy restaurant in downtown Philly, so Nolan doesn’t even wait for an answer and just drags Travis back out to the door, biding a very hasty goodbye to a disappointed looking Dave. Once they’re out the door, Nolan cracks up. “Did you actually book a reservation or nah?” 

“I did!” Travis insists. “I got G to give me a rundown of all the places in Philly he took Ryanne when he was dating her or whatever and this was like, Ryanne’s favourite place. So _ obviously _, I was like, maybe I’ll take Pats there tomorrow. For fuck’s sake.” 

“You don’t need to do that,” Nolan says. He rubs the back of his neck and glances over at Travis out of the corner of his eye. “I mean—what you said back there in the restaurant. You don’t need to like—impress me or anything. I’m. Uh, already impressed. All the time.” 

Travis looks surprised at that. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You gonna give me anything else besides just _ yeah_?” 

“No,” Nolan says. 

“You’re such a grumpy bitch,” Travis says, delighted, and crowds right up into Nolan’s space and backs him into the brick wall of the restaurant. He gets up on his tiptoes so he can hang his arms around Nolan’s neck and use one hand to grab the back of his neck and pull him down to kiss him, right there, in the middle of Philly. Someone wolf-whistles from down the street and Nolan flips them off. 

Travis pulls away after a while and Nolan wraps his arm around Travis’ waist to pull him back, chases his mouth a bit which makes Travis laugh and swat at Nolan’s face. “Jesus, Pats,” he teases. “Plenty of me to go around. You gotta control yourself, man.” 

Nolan rolls his eyes. “Control _ myself _? You popped the L-word just now like, barely two months in.” 

“Whatever,” Travis shrugs, completely undisturbed, “if you like it, put a ring on it, or whatever, yeah?” 

“We’re not getting married,” Nolan hisses. 

“Yeah, duh. It was like, a metaphor or some shit.” Travis kisses the bottom of Nolan’s jaw lightly and just once. “Guess I just wanted to. I don’t know. Stake my claim or something.”

“I L-word you too, bud,” he mutters to Travis, as casually as he can manage with his face on fire and his heart pounding out of his chest. “Just to like, stake my claim.” 

“Guess all the claims are staked now,” Travis says solemnly and Nolan doesn’t even care that he’s in L-word with this absolute jackass of a person when Travis leans up to kiss him again. 

**Author's Note:**

> title is from ada limon's the widening road: "a tenderness grows like a fluttering in her hand."
> 
> ive never written a serious plot premise in my life and now im too scared to try!! thank you for reading! [twitter](https://twitter.com/rusesdeguerre) | [tumblr](https://rusesdeguerre.tumblr.com/)


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